Off to the Races
by nevergone4ever
Summary: Though rootless and desolate, these kids know what they're doing. Cutting off all ties takes guts. After all, if they don't have guts, what do they have? Modern day AU.
1. Fear and Loathing

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* * *

 _ **I'm done with trying to have it all, and ending up with not much else at all.**_

* * *

 **Kendall Ledet, 32, Citizen of Lansing, Michigan**

* * *

Joshua stares at me expectantly.

"I know, I know…" I bury my face in my arms, feeling the coolness of the table against my chin. The light streaming in from the large glass windows feels accusing. "I messed up. But I can fix this, sir. I can."

His voice is deep. "We've worked on this for four years now, Ledet. It's our fifth year in the running and you came _this_ close to messing up. Do you know how many peoples' lives you could have ruined?"

"I didn't mean to share the document," I hiss.

He throws up his hands in a blend of anger and disgust. "But you did, Ms. Ledet. You're young – that's why I hired you. For a friendly face to welcome the kids. But… maybe this was a mistake."

"It's no mistake, not at all," I rush to assure him. Joshua might have the face of a kindly grandfather with his laugh lines and spectacles, but I've seen what lies under his mask. Rage, apprehension, lust, greed, hunger. I can't afford to have the mask lifted again. I need to keep the pot simmering – but not boiling. "It was an error of my own self. Nobody else's. And I take full responsibility, sir, I do."

Joshua sits back in his chair, folding his arms over each other. "I trust you, Ms. Ledet."

"With all good reason." I smile warily. "With all good reason. You're my business partner, Mister, my equal-"

"Business partner!" he seems to find this hilarious. " _Equal_! I am your _superior_ , Ms. Ledet, and you will refer to me as that."

My breath lets out in a sigh of defeat. "Fine. Superior. But, sir… don't you think we should have some outside consultancies on this change? I mean, advertising… that's big. Anybody could stick their nose into our business."

Joshua nods slowly. "I've considered this, and I've decided to let you meet up with them. Haven't we discussed this? They're due to drop by in just twenty minutes to share their views on the matter."

"Will you ask most of the questions, or shall I?"

"Me?" Joshua laughs. "I'll be long gone by then. I'm going to Compton until you have the fresh batch of kids ready, Kendall." It's the first time he's used my first name, and it doesn't go unnoticed. His eyes grow hard, steely. "I've given you my plans. All you have to talk about with those kids are their thoughts on advertising. Everything is set up. I can meet you in Detroit in two weeks."

I bite my lip, stuck between wanting him to stay so I have a backbone, and wanting him to leave so I can prove my responsibilities.

My mouth speaks before my brain can.

"Have fun in California, Joshua."

Twenty minutes later Joshua's gone and I'm pacing around the meeting room, glancing occasionally out the window and through the door, waiting for the four to show up. No doubt they'll be confused.

But as soon as they trickle in, their eyes full of clarity and hands swinging carelessly, it occurs to me that really, maybe they're not confused; maybe they're just tired of all the pandemonium.

I feel as if I should run over each child, if I can call them that.

The first to win was Colton, a tall, lanky boy hailing from Massachusetts. Mature-looking, with scruffy speckles of a beard dotting his face and a severe glare, it was no surprise when he himself turned out to be a bit of a brute. But a soft-hearted brute. After he won, he opened up to me. Thought me of something as a friend, something he'd never had before. The oldest of the bunch, too.

Second to win was Sierra, a bumbling wild card with fire in her eyes and rage boiling in her veins instead of blood. Her hair was a pinkish blue color, and she smirked an awful lot. I feel like she wasn't even affected by killing children. Then again, she might have been hopped up on heroin the entire time, so it all evens out. I don't like her much. She's bitchy and sarcastic rolled into one.

Third comes Elle, another one who isn't my favorite. She's too pristine for my tastes. Pristine, pretentious, and parrotlike, that's her. She ran away from a family that was loaded. I mean, she came here with Swarovski on her wrist and Gucci sneakers on her feet. She's down to earth when she likes, but she's also very argumentive. The perfect stereotype of a spoiled rich hag.

The most recent to win, and to be honest, my favorite, is Kenny. He's a lot more shy than the others, but the most violent when he gets fired up. He came from a broken past with nothing but the threadbare bag on his back and a whole lot of sorrow. He's shy most of the time, drowned out by the louder personalities of Colton, Sierra, and Elle. But I think he's okay with that, for some reason.

"Why are we here?" Sierra's the first to speak, loudly chewing a wad of blue bubblegum. Her hair – pink this time – hurts my eyes.

"I was getting a pedicure," Elle complains, but she's smirking.

"Sit down." They all comply without a word. Elle reaches for a bottle of Fiji water in the chilled cooler in the center of the table. The other three stare at me expectantly. "Joshua wanted me to call-"

"Joshua?" Colton's eyes flash – he's not a fan of Joshua, like many others. If there's anything that the old man has done besides eat sandwiches made of dollar bills and take baths in gold, it's made lots of enemies.

"It's… not bad." I smile uneasily. "He wants to ask your guys' opinions on… advertising the Game. More than usual."

It's Sierra who blinks first, a scowl darkening on her face. "As if a newspaper ad wasn't enough?" She complains loudly. "What more can you do, send out flyers to families with kids who wanna get away?"

"It's not just the kids wanting to get away," I say, trying to avoid her question, but she's on a roll, like always.

"It's screwed up my life enough as it is," Sierra proceeds with a glower, daring me to remind her that running away was the best thing she's ever done, "and I don't think you should advertise it even more. What do you need, more kids to harm?" Her tone is icy.

If there's a point to be made, Sierra will be the one to do it, even if she doesn't believe in it. She loves arguments. I feel as if she continued on the drug-free lifestyle that we've prepared for her and toned down the hair dye, she'd make a stupendous lawyer.

"You know that's not the case and that's the end of it," I say snippily, turning to the other three. Kenny shrinks under my gaze. Colton stares at me placidly. Elle sips her Fiji water. "What do you three think?"

"No doubt there'd be extra kids," Elle says in a high-pitched voice, "So what would you do with the excess?"

"Therapy," I reply, shrugging. "Even if all they want is a game… Joshua and I don't necessarily support their cause. We're pawns. Yes, Colton, not even Joshua is the big cheese here. There's bigger forces above us, and we need to comply to what they want. But we want the other kids who came here with big hopes and dreams to be able to fulfill them – safely. Too many kids in the Game, you've got a problem. So we send the excess to therapy to help them pull through whatever troubles they're going through."

"That's confusing," Colton observes.

I nod, closing my eyes briefly. "I'm aware. It makes sense for Joshua, though, so…"

"And I still can't believe," he interjects quickly, raising an arm to silence me, "that Joshua isn't the biggest guy in whatever force you guys are working for. I mean, who can be bigger than Joshua?"

"Many people, I'm afraid," I say, trying to hide the pain in my voice. "He's got the money, but it's others who have the ideas. Like I said… pawns, guys. Pawns."

Sierra has been silently brewing while Colton and I have been speaking, but now she pipes up again. "I personally think," she announces, her voice packed full of wavering honesty, "that advertising is a great way to get kids for the Game, and an excellent technique to give therapy to the rejected scum."

And then Kenny speaks up, his deep voice strong and faithful.

"It's almost better to be rejected than to have to live throughout the Game, isn't it?" he says mournfully. "We all know the effects. We've all lived through it."

"It's only the fifth time around, guys," Elle interjects before he can say anything else. "This Game is still new. The idea is still fresh. Why not advertise, this early on?"

"It's settled, then?" My question hangs in the air. "Websites, commercials, newspaper ads… they'll all be done as soon as possible. More kids can come. We can help more kids… except for the chosen ones."

Simultaneously, they all give a small smile, some more false than others.

"Now…" Elle pokes her small nose up in the air, searching. "Now that we've been talking smack about him behind his back, where _is_ Joshua?"

"Compton." I frown. "Big drug trade going on there. Lots of profits to be gained – both cash money, and blood money."

And they disperse with that one bit of information, satisfied. As they should be. After the Game, which each of them won in their own special sort of way to please my superiors, they've been living in the lap of luxury. Colton in a basement corridor, saying that the coolness helps him think. Sierra near a window, loving the gossip that floats in. Elle on a penthouse suite – fitting, for a girl of her pretentiousness. And Kenny, in his simple apartment on a random floor, saying that he never needed very much.

In a way, our foundation has only helped runaways. Depressed, suicidal, struggling to breathe in a sea of mental issues and troubles. We've given them new life.

They were broken – take Sierra for example, dabbling in drugs and alcohol and all things illegal. We've eased her off that. Now she's… still feisty, but at least she's not dangerous. With Kenny it was violence; with Elle it was hatred of her parents; and with Colton, depression. The victors of the Game have won more than a lottery would ever have given them.

But for the other kids? The ones who _lost_ their Game?

We've destined them to a fate worse than death.

And I hate that I can do nothing to help them.

* * *

 **A/N: Fear and Loathing by Marina and the Diamonds.**

* * *

 **Lol look who it is. It's me. Back at it again with another stupid story, eh? I said I was done with SYOT's. And I am. This isn't a SYOT. Maybe I'm shooting myself in the foot by starting up a new AU story where I'll only accept like 10 tributes, and where my schedule is so stressful and busy (soccer, school, people) but whatever. Be warned right now of sporadic updates and no promises. The format's gonna be different, there will be less tributes, it's a modern AU, everything is different in this story. And, yeah, shitty A/N but all the details are on my profile, really.**

 **Anyways, I'm Kelly, what's up, form and stuff is on my profile. I guess I'm a decent writer and 'legend' in the word of some ( jalen), so make your tribute good and I'll accept it, simple as that.**

 **By the way, the current victor's blog is therunawayshg . blogspot . com - go check it out, get a feel for what I'm doing.**

 **And before I bid adieu, the basic outline of the story is this:**

 _ **Kids from all over receive an ad online or in the news describing a series of games with riches. They all have different motivations – running away from their families, escaping bad situations, etc. Some will never make it to Detroit. Some won't get accepted to the Game, flung into therapy sessions instead. This truly is a battle for the chosen ones. And the one thing they have in common? They're all runaways. Somehow, though, none of this ever gets caught. The kids never speak. Then again, how could they? They're helpless.**_


	2. Monster

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* * *

 _ **He battered his tiny fists to feel something, wondered what it's like to touch and feel something.**_

* * *

 **Lars Grunow, 15, Citizen of Campion, Colorado**

* * *

The motor hums for the umpteenth time.

Sighing, leaning back in the uncomfortable Greyhound bus seat, my eyes stray to the window, searching the endless sky of navy blue. Detroit is a long way away from Campion, and I doubt we're even a fifth of the way there.

Getting out of town was the easy part. Asking my friend Dave's older brother for a ride, since I only have my permit, while he was out for a long, all-night drive. Getting to Denver was easy, and grabbing as bus from there. But now? On what should be the easiest part of this whole journey?

It's the thing that's making my guts twist.

I hold a hand up to the cold glass of the window, smeared with fingerprints and what look like crayon markings. My seat is dotted with crumbs from a cookie I had earlier. My stomach grumbles – not for long. The next stop is in only five minutes, and I have more than enough money to get a sandwich and a soda.

It's around three in the morning now. We've been driving, it seems, for ages, and the old grizzled woman on the seat next to me looks as if she may have been driven to death. But even her pale blue eyes that flicker open occasionally, scanning the scenery like a lizard, can't even begin to fathom where I'm taking this bus.

 _Detroit_. The word curdles up in my throat, bending out onto my tongue.

The perfect escape, it said, for a person just like me.

It said that this was a sanctuary for those who were feeling lost. Runaways. That they'd nurse us back to feeling full of life again, for those who have death in their eyes and negativity circling in our minds. That they'd help us.

And at this point, it was either this 'sanctuary' or suicide. Nothing more.

Campion is a tiny town, if it can be called that. Lonely people circle around. There's barely one thousand people from our last census, let alone many teenagers my age to make friends with. Everybody knows everybody. There's one café that everybody hangs out at.

The perfect image of a small town.

Which is the precise reason why I had to leave.

An outright suicide would have wrecked the town. Lots of people knew me, even if not many liked me. But lots knew me. They'd be crushed by my absence. They'd have no hope.

But a disappearance? In a town such as mine? At the most, there'd be, like, four police officers searching the fields. They'd give up after a week. My parents, my sister, they'd move on. Eventually. I was distant from them for a very long time; I doubt that they'd care very much if I didn't come back for a long time.

And anyways, there would always be the hope of me returning home.

So it's not a total loss.

The bus stops with a halt, and I look out quickly into a parking lot. An oasis.

People file down the bus line, talking in hushed tones. Half of them have bruiselike circles underneath their eyes, yellow skin, little dots lining up their bare arms. Others are quivering. Another good chunk are itching themselves, obviously riddled with disease or lice. Nobody really looks normal, bar the old lady next to me and a couple frazzled middle-aged people.

Clutching my knapsack close to my chest, I careful squeeze past the old woman, whose eyes have suddenly flown open, and make my way to the bus exit. Headlights from the bus illuminate a pathway to the oasis, its glass doors sleek and modern.

Once inside the heated place, I fish out a twenty dollar bill, searching for a sandwich shop. There's a Subway, so I order a turkey sandwich with mayo and lettuce and cheese from there, along with a Coke. The food tastes rubbery in my parched mouth. I guzzle my soda thirstily, gratefully.

I may have been able to plan this entire journey a little better. It was a rush for me and I didn't take much. I'd grabbed the first couple things that came to mind – a bottle of pills for my migraines, a razor, my phone, a few small boxes of cereal, and a jacket. My knapsack feels incredibly empty.

My stomach suddenly feeling the opposite of empty, I push my sandwich to the opposite side of the table, clutching the cold Styrofoam cup of Coca-Cola tightly.

A man in a snapback sidles up to my table, a grey mustache tinted with cigarette juice wiggling as he begins to talk. "You gonna finish those vittles, kid?"

"They're all yours." I eye up his shirt, slashed down the sides to reveal a very skinny-looking ribcage. "W-Would you like anything else to eat, sir?" I ask, displaying respect towards my elders.

"Some tobacco would be nice," he starts out, looking completely serious. I must have a queer look on my face, because he guffaws loudly, slapping the table and shaking my cup of Coke. It sloshes in the thin paper cup. "I'm joking, kid, turn that frown around."

I smile nervously, watching him wolf down four whole inches of a sandwich in three large bites. His teeth gnash like a wolf going down on a deer carcass. "You must have been hungry," I mumble. "Are you sure I can't buy you anything else? Subway has bigger sandwiches if-"

"Where are you headin', kid?" the man squints his dark brown eyes at me, reclining in his chair. "It's three in the gaw-danged morning and here you are, a fresh pup, on a bus with all us loonies. Regulars. What's up, kid?"

"My name is Lars," I say bravely. "I'm from Campion."

He squints even further, his eyes barely twinkling from his wrinkled eyelids. "Where in the heck is that?"

"Colorado," I say. "Where are you from?"

This has the man stumped. He pulls out a cigarette from his pocket, fiddling with it, obviously without a lighter. Finally, he snaps it in half, watching the orangey dust pour out of its paper packaging onto the table, resembling sand. "I'm from nowhere, kid," he says gruffly. "At one point it was Ohio. At another, Indiana. Heck, I even lived in Alaska with Sherry for a good four years. I've been all over, kid, but my time's up."

Feeling more than a little confused on what he's getting at, I lean forward, trying to ignore the mayonnaise-covered lettuce bits that dot his beard. "And?"

"Guess you could say I'm a runaway." The man's eyes swivel heavenward, before crashing back to the table. "Rootless. It's not a fun life."

"How'd you start out as a runaway?"

"Not important," the man says with a wave of his hand. "Once it happened, it happened. I can't change the past, and it looks like I'm not gonna be able to change my present much, either."

"That's close-minded," I say.

He shakes his head, gives a creaky laugh. "All that matters is that you don't follow my path, kid. Being lost and alone and all that, it's not fun. If the fuzz doesn't get you, the thoughts will. Bad ideas. Bad mind. Bad everything. And it's all in your head. You're really on your own out there, and I guarantee you, it's not fun at all. People do anythin' to get ahead in life. They don't care about you. They need to trick you, they will. Pair that with a broken mind and it's a ticket to disaster, kid. If you're lookin' for a sign, any sign, to turn back, this is it. You can forget about the bus to Detroit and buy a ticket right back to your front door."

When the man leaves, his words linger.

* * *

 **A/N: Monster by Meg and Dia.**

* * *

 _ **Tribute List:**_

 _ **Males**_ **:**

 **Etienne Devere  
** **Arian Jenson  
** **Payton West  
** **Antonio Chavitas  
** **Mitchell Davies  
** **Raine Harvey**

 _ **Females**_ **:**

 **Devon Carmichael  
** **Natalie Decker  
** **Paige Altham  
** **Chase Kennedy  
** **Ailsa Aleese  
** **Laurel Amory**

 _ **Blog – offtotheraceshg . blogspot . com**_

 **Yeah… that's really all I have to say. I wanna thank everyone for the tributes that they took the time to create and submit, and I want to thank everyone who's helped in the creation and development of this story so far, whether it's offer to advertise it in their own story or offer input. Every little bit helps, especially on a new series that's still wobbling on its first legs. I also want to apologize to those who didn't get in. There's really not that much I can say to defend myself, they were all so nice and thought out, but in the end I chose the ones that I hoped would make the most collaborative story altogether.**

 **12 tributes and 1.5k words later in the chapter, here we are. I'd love if you checked out the blog, got a feel for the things to come, and yeah, that's basically it!**

* * *

 _ **Questions:**_

 **Thoughts on each tribute?**

 **A love/like/neutral/dislike/hate chart?**

 **Overall thoughts on the series and idea?**


	3. Angels Forever

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* * *

 _ **Paradise is a hell-colored flame sky.  
**_

* * *

 _ **Ailsa Aleese, 15, Malibu, California**_

* * *

Gillian's smile is addicting.

"It's four AM," she breathes into my ear.

I shift in my silky powder blue nightshirt. "And?"

I can see the whites of her eyes in the moonlight as she rolls them. "You said you'd be ready by four."

"But I'm so tired," I whine.

Gillian huffs, moving from my bed to my window seat, gazing out at the waves lapping the powdery sand. "Well, hurry up. We have to be at the train station by five." She sighs, fumbling in her front jean pocket and grabbing a cigarette from her pack. I watch her silhouette as there's a spark, a small gleam of red, and finally a thin trail of glimmering smoke trail up from her pouty lips. I myself didn't smoke, but I found it fascinating and exciting that she did.

I pull myself out of the cocoon of blankets wistfully, glancing back with a sigh. I start to slide off my pajama shorts, pulling on a pair of faded jeans in their place. "It's gonna take forever to pack."

She shoots me a glare brimming with acid. "You haven't even packed yet?"

"It's such a chore." I huff, throwing on a white and cerulean striped top. "I was surfing till nine last night and after that I just ate pizza on the deck until I wandered up here and crashed. I wasn't really that bothered. What did you pack?"

"A couple sweatshirts, extra underwear, some protein bars, cigarettes, cash, my phone, a lighter, just random stuff. Wasn't such a chore to _me_ , just threw some stuff in a bag and off I went. Now hurry up!"

I dramatically fling myself across the room, making sure my feet don't clatter on the floor as to not wake up my family, and retrieve my sea blue backpack from my closet. What to pack? I tap my chin a few times before grabbing a tube of deodorant and my hairbrush. Those were obvious. They're followed by a few cans of Pringles and a box of granola bars. My eyes drift to a shelf, where my earbuds dangle haphazardly from a jewelry tree. Tangled, but still usable. I tuck those in a pocket.

"Hurry up, you idiot," Gillian whines softly from the windowseat. "If we wanted to leave before your parents woke up, we're not making much progress."

"Who was the one who wanted to leave here in the first place?" I snap back at her. "We're only gonna be gone a couple days, probably. A week, tops. Just enough to do your lovely mommy a frighten." My hands brush across my favorite cardigan, and I fold that neatly before tucking it in. "You're just ever so lucky that you have a supportive best friend who would throw herself in the flaming pits of hell for you."

"I will forever worship you," Gillian gags falsely, although I know that underneath her careless attitude, there's a girl who really does appreciate my gesture, wouldn't be leaving if it weren't for me by my side. "Now, ready to go?"

"Hang on," I sigh. My fingers flex at my sides, unready. It seemed as if I had everything I'd need, but just in case… a picture of my family. Not that I'd need it or anything.

"I guess I'm ready now."

"Good," she says, throwing her half-used cigarette out the window. I watch it plop into the fountain in the yard. "Time to go, right?"

Checking the time – 4:20, hardee har har – I tuck my phone into my back pocket. "Yep."

Neither Gillian and I had our own cars – her family didn't have the funds to afford a car for each of their children, and I'd wasted my prize money on a new surfboard and two flashy wetsuits – but the train station was just a fifteen minute walk from my place. The morning air was cold, and I could make out goosebumps on Gillian's bare legs. I bet she was regretting not packing sweatpants.

"I wonder if anyone else we know will be going," I muse aloud.

"Probably not." I can see Gillian's frown as a car's headlights flash onto her face. "I mean, if I barely missed the ad in the paper, who else would see it? Hell, who even _reads_ the paper aside from me?"

"Damn it." I'd had visions of waltzing into the station fashionably and seeing dozens upon dozens of our peers, sleepy-eyed and eager. Like a big adventure with all my friends. Apparently this wouldn't be the case.

"Why do you even care?" she snorts. "Oh, wait, the great Ailsa Aleese, _not_ caring what people think? Legendary. Novel idea. Someone write a movie about this!"

"Oh, shut up." I roll my eyes. It's true, I did care too much about what people thought, but she didn't have the right to make fun of me for it. I didn't make fun of her issues and quirks. Then again, it didn't bother me that much, either; I really couldn't be bothered.

There's silence for another good ten minutes, until the train station comes into view. People flooding in and out of the escalators, cars honking, the surge of controlled chaos even in the infant hours of the morning. Malibu was full of energy, and I was glad to be a part of it.

Would Detroit be noisier? More lowkey? Packed with more adventure than even my own hometown? What opportunities lie in store? For me? For Gillian?

With a sideways glance to my best friend's grinning face, I decide that I can't wait to find out.

* * *

 _ **Antonio Chavitas, 15, New London, Connecticut**_

* * *

The black ground of the track makes me feel like I'm flying.

" _One more lap, Harrison, Chavitas, Andrews, Li, hurry it up. You're at five minutes, fifty seconds."_

The three boys that surround me are panting hard. Jack Harrison, Nathaniel Andrews, Heejun Li. My friends. My track buddies. Ever since seventh grade, we've been an unstoppable force in West New London. The best in our class, they say. The trophies proudly displayed in the cases lining the halls to the gym prove that. So do the smiles that the parents get whenever we come jogging off the bus at meets. The cheers. The applause. The glory.

It's all a boy like me could want.

But it's not what I want. I want more than just little New London, scraping along with just about twenty-five thousand people. The victories that we win are sweet, and it's nice to see the school at our meets. But I don't just want that. I want people from all over to see my face and know who I am. I want people to look at me and tell me that I've done something for them, that I've been a role model for them.

And why?

Because when I was little, all I needed was a role model, really. Daddy dearest never provided that for me. Even a high-schooler with big dreams of running track for a profession and good intentions would have been better than a man who skidded in and out of jobs at fast food restaurants and picked up a new girl every week.

We finish the lap too early, in just about a minute and a half. Even though my thighs burn and my calves are weak, I look at the track longingly, shoulders sagging slightly as I reach for my water bottle. I could run forever.

"Good run, boys." Coach Jefferson beams up at us. Though he's short and stocky, he encourages us, yells at us, scolds us, brings us oranges to each practice. He's sentimental and he's dictatorial, and everything about him makes him incredibly important to me. "Hit the locker room and be out of the gym by five. Can't have you running around while baseball practice is going on."

The four of us, always the last to leave the track after practice, tread silently to the locker room. I'm greeted with the sickly sweet and pungent smell of sweat and deodorant when we arrive.

Jack, Nate, and Heejun babble on about our upcoming track meet and Nate's recent lack of a girlfriend, but I can't concentrate. Not like it's anything new. I'm just too focused on something else. My mind is too hazy. Life feels like a blur at the moment, and it's not just because of how fast I run.

"Hey, Antonio, see you tomorrow at practice, bitch," Jack hollers after me after I almost walk out without saying goodbye.

I poke my head back in, flash a grin, and nod my head. "See you, too, _jack_ ass."

But I won't see him tomorrow. I won't see anyone from here tomorrow, actually.

Because I'm leaving tonight.

It was a few weeks ago when I was on a school computer, no less, looking up information on the El Salvador civil war for a paper. I had been sifting through sketchy-looking websites when I saw it – a tiny internet ad, hidden under a big paragraph of text.

I don't know why it intrigued me, or why I felt the need to look at it in private, but I took a quick picture of the little ad on my phone and took a closer crack at it that night, in the privacy of my room. I don't know what I had expected, but that wasn't it. The bolded words announced a game. Not just any game, but a game for kids like myself. Kids who felt lost, who felt like their talents and abilities weren't being acknowledged. Those who wanted to escape. Those who _needed_ to escape.

My stomach feels tight as I approach my house ten minutes later. Our lawn is freshly cut; a little sloppy, but what can you expect from the nine-year-old boy who I give ten dollars to mow it every two weeks? The blinds are drawn. My dad's car is parked crookedly in our drive.

By the time I slide the key in the lock, there's a cold sweat breaking out on my head, even though I feel like I should know what to expect by now.

I swing the door open. The room reeks of cigarettes and drugstore perfume. There's a noise, like a can being knocked over.

Shit.

My gaze swivels to the kitchen automatically, and I hear my dad take in a breath. Eyes widening, I take in my nearly naked father, clad in boxers only. Then I stare at the bruised girl on the counter, hardly older than twenty-five. She has lipstick on her tits.

" _Antonio_ ," my father bellows.

"You can fuck off," I shriek before he has a chance to come after me. Disgust bubbles up in my stomach like acid. There's no reason he has to yell at me, not when I've walked in on him like this so many times. He's horny for young women, and for some reason, they like him right back. It's sick. It's perverted. It's wrong, and I don't want to be anything like my father.

I run past the horrid sight in the kitchen to my small room, slamming the door. I'd wanted to pack tonight. I'd wanted to plan things out. Not anymore. It had never even crossed my mind that my father would be on one of his 'ventures' tonight. More importantly, I'd never thought it would be on the place I had planned on eating dinner.

But this does it. Screw waiting until my father was asleep. Why would he even try and stop me?

Swinging my backpack off my shoulder, I empty it of my school supplies, folders and notebooks and stray pencils tumbling to the floor. My eyes flicker across my room, searching for things I might need. A half-empty box of strawberry Poptarts. A toothbrush. A second hoodie with our school logo on it, in case Detroit was cold. A few bottles of grape Gatorade. The last card my mom ever sent me and my varsity track award. A charger for my phone.

I don't think there's a single ounce of regret in my body when I stride past my father and the girl in the kitchen, backpack held tight to my chest, slamming the door behind me.

I'm finally free. I'm _finally_ out of the hell that I used to call home.

I couldn't be more ready for Detroit.

* * *

 _ **Chase Kennedy, 15, Lafayette, Louisiana**_

* * *

"I don't have anywhere else to stay!"

"Why not stay with your boyfriend? Or should I say, ' _baby daddy'_?" my mother sneers down at me, looking much higher than five foot six from her perch on top of the stairs. Her eyes are full of venom, her nostrils flared. "I can't believe you, Chase. You're Catholic. You're on the honor roll. And yet you let this happen."

"I created an issue, so I created a solution!" I retort, resisting the urge to stamp my foot.

My mother snorts, her voice high-pitched. Shrill. "Get out. Get out. Wait till your father hears about this. Congressman for Louisiana, big house, perfect family, except for _you_."

"I didn't fucking mean for it to happen!" I yell.

"But it did!" she clenches the banister. "I told you, get out. Go _away_. I need to clear my head. I need to wrap my head around this. I need to tell… your father…"

I make to go up the stairs.

"Where do you think you're going?" she sneers.

I smile dryly, just about ready to spit at her. "My phone is up there, _Mommy_."

"Your phone?!" she nearly screams. "You think you're getting your phone back after all this has happened? So you can dial up your varsity-league boyfriend and have some more _intercourse_?"

"Oh, please." I swallow an insult and glare. "So guess I'm not even getting my phone to call up one of my friends to see if I can spend the night?"

My mother's ferocious glower tells me I'm correct.

"Fine." The fake smile returns, and I shrug like I'm not seething both inwardly and outwardly. I pull my denim jacket closer to my skin and shrug. "I'll just leave, then. Get out of your way, since clearly your thoughts are more important than your own flesh and blood."

"You always were so dramatic, Chase." My mother's lips curve downward into a haughty frown. Past tense, like I'm already gone.

Damn her.

I turn away, facing into the kitchen as I hear her footsteps trail off somewhere upstairs; my room, presumably, to snatch up my phone and to read all the juicy sexts she's assumed I send to my boyfriend, no matter how many times I've told her otherwise. _Oh, how I love my mother's ability to trust!_

My soccer drawstring bag lies in a heap at the front door, my running shoes and soccer ball already inside it. If I'm leaving for real, might as well keep my prized possessions and keep my itinerary to a minimum. My thoughts feel robotic as I move around the downstairs, gathering my things. My iPod, on the desk, earbuds wrapped around it. My rosary beads, dangling off the counter. Anything more? What more could you need?

My gaze flits to the closed door of my parents' room.

I'm a good person. I go to church every Sunday. I try my best to make decent decisions, I really do.

But will God punish me if my own mother kicks me out? I mean, I know that there's a commandment that says you shouldn't go against your parents, and yeah, rules about stealing, but what if the circumstances weren't in your favor?

My hand flies to the doorknob, turns it softly, so there's no noise, and I slide into the dark room. I'm drawn to the cupboard, to the cookie tin where I know my mother keeps emergency money. She doesn't know I know, but spying isn't a sin.

I crack it open, eyes scanning the stacks of twenties. There's so many, hoarding just a couple for my own use won't matter. I slide a handful into the pocket of my jacket, maybe about one hundred sixty dollars.

That's all I need, isn't it? Cash and rosary beads and my soccer stuff. Ball is life, right?

The sidewalk seems foreign to me as I walk along it. I don't have my own car – I'm only fifteen. Ryan's parents didn't even know about the abortion, and yeah, neither did he until the morning of. They still think I'm that good girl that their son dates, the one who shows up to church in a pretty dress and Converse.

Which I am. I'm such a good person, and that's not sarcasm.

There's a payphone in front of the donut shop a few streets down, and that's where I head. Fishing a quarter out of the bottom of my bag where I keep assorted change, I dial Ryan's cell.

He picks up after a couple rings, his voice groggy. "H'llo?"

"It's me." I exhale. "Chase."

"Hey, baby." He isn't so groggy anymore, more so tense, as he's been ever since that doctor's appointment. "What's up?"

"Well…" I suck in a breath. "I kinda just got kicked out."

" _What_?"

"It's _very_ nineteen-ninety television, I know…" I shift from one foot to the other, aware of the glances I'm getting as people walk past. "But yeah, Mom's been on my case for days and she just snapped."

"You're gonna ask if you can crash here." His voice shows no signs of laxness.

"Can I, babe?"

He sucks in a breath. "The thing is, Ma still doesn't know about-"

"I can't stay, I get it, no need to explain it to me." My heart drops suddenly, and all the energy that I usually have pent up inside of me dwindles just a bit. "That's fine. Fine."

"Chase…"

"I can stay with Becca or Caroline or someone." I feel a fake smile creeping onto my face, even if there's no one watching me. "It'll be good. I'll be good."

"Baby, I-"

"You're a good person, Ryan," I whisper into the phone. "And so am I. I'll see you at school tomorrow."

The pay phone makes a very satisfying clatter when I slam it back into place.

The curdling in my stomach doesn't diminish after the call, though. My boyfriend is sweet, he's religious, he's got a wicked sense of humor, but he's a mama's boy, and he plays by the rules. That's the one thing I've never liked about him; he never really loosened up.

My shoulders slump and I scratch against a sticker on the pay phone box dejectedly, peeling off a corner. All of a sudden, I don't know why, but the italic letters catch my eye.

 _Escape needed?_

 _Come to Detroit._

* * *

 **A/N: Angels Forever, Forever Angels by Lana del Rey.**

* * *

 **Starting this story off right, 3 POV's a chapter, hope it was decent. I'm kinda new to this whole AU thing, I guess.**

 **Anywayssss, I don't have much of an author's note. School's out soon, as is my sport schedule, maybe I'll update before that, maybe not. Time will tell. Thanks for all the great blog reviews, by the way, I appreciate everyone making an effort to support their tribute and this story! :-)**

 **Questions:**

 _ **Thoughts on each POV?**_

 _ **Chart?**_

 _ **Who are you excited to see?**_


	4. Trust Nobody

.

* * *

 _ **If I'm the devil, color me surprised; I didn't know demons wore angel's hide.  
**_ _ **And I'll strip the wings right off your back if you dare to fly.**_

* * *

 _ **Mitchell Davies, 14, Arvada, Wyoming**_

* * *

This is where I'm meant to be.

7pm and we've made our second stop. It's a small street up in some minor range, with white capping the tips of mountains in the distance. I can see the last whispers of peachy pink and rosy orange fading into the background.

My legs feel wobbly as I hop off the bus, backpack held tight to my back. My heart swells with happiness as I examine my surroundings: chilly air, the smell of melting snow and sausages drifting through the air, not a single person that I know.

It's almost perfect.

"We'll have half an hour here, everybody," our bus driver calls out after us as everyone files out, wandering in their separate ways to grab a bite to eat for dinner, maybe some provisions for the road. "Be on the bus by seven-thirty unless this is your destination."

I watch as a little family, a quartet of a mom, dad, and two little boys plods off towards a worn-down grocery store, a small pang echoing deep within my chest. Even if I got on this bus to escape my family, somewhat, it still hurts that they don't know where I am, what's happened to me, what I'm doing. I mean, sure, I wanted a break from them, but they're my family. Now I regret not leaving a note or a sign or _something_ to show them that I'll be doing alright.

Hey – maybe all is not lost.

Swiveling into the direction of a shop with the windows marked with so many bumper stickers I can barely see inside, I push open the door, striding in. A gift shop, smelling of circus peanuts and excitement.

The traditional postcard rack lies near the counter, and I spin it around a few times, sifting through the pretty sunrises and the grassy images of summertime. _Keystone_ , _South Dakota,_ the cards read out. _Under 400 is the way to be._

I select a glossy card with a particularly nice image of pine trees on a hill and bring it to the cashier, a woman with thin black hair and a large nose. She peers over her spectacles at me. "That all?"

My eyes drift to a little wicker basket on the counter, and I generously add a few handmade caramels to my purchase.

"Two ninety."

I'm not gonna send the postcard now, but what about later? Yeah, I decide. I definitely will. I gotta let them know I'm doing alright.

Walking out of the gift shop, sucking on one of the delicious candies, it occurs to me that I'm not really hungry as I had been expecting. Shame – I had packed over two hundred dollars for this expedition, money I had made doing "chores" at the ranch this past summer. What a laugh. All I'd done is eat my mother's blueberry pancakes and pet the horses once in a while, and my father called it "appreciating the little life".

However, there would probably be more expenses for me to waste my dough on in the future; now just wasn't the time.

Seven-thirty sneaks up too fast, as I would have been content to just wander around aimlessly, stretching my legs some more until the next stop. When I arrive back at my seat, the funny woman wearing the purple cap who used to be seated next to me isn't there, neither is the older gentleman who was next to her, for that matter, but in their spots is being taken up by a young-looking couple of girls. They're both tan, both with dark hair, although one has a mess of wild curls, while the other's is stick-straight and in a ponytail.

"Honestly, screw wrong turns, man," the straight-haired one goes. "I thought you had this planned, Gillian."

"I did! It said Bus 17 was to go to Vegas, and from there, a straight shot to Chicago and then Detroit!" the curly-haired girl scowls. "I didn't mess this up, I swear. I don't know what happened."

"Doesn't matter, I suppose," the other goes. "We still have about three days to get to Detroit; we'll get there in time anyways."

Detroit?

My ears perk up, and I try not to ogle the two of them up too obviously. My heart gives a nervous flutter, though I couldn't imagine what for. Even if they are taking the bus to Detroit, they could be going for a completely different reason as I am.

But it doesn't hurt to ask…

"Excuse me?" My voice rings out over the quiet hum of the bus motor.

The girls turn to look at me, surprised.

"This probably sounds creepy and all that, but…" I press my lips together for a moment. "Why… why are you two going to Detroit?"

They turn to look at each other, hissing air through their teeth, before turning back to face me. "Well," the one with straight hair says, "it's kind of a weird reason, actually…"

"Same, though," I plod on. No stopping now. "Are you… are you two going for the game? The special opportunities and whatever?"

"You saw that ad too?!" she exclaims.

"Yes!" A grin spreads across my mug. "For those looking for an escape and everything?"

"Gillian over here thought we were some special ones who were the only ones to see the ad," the girl scoffs, jabbing her curly-haired friend in the arm. "I'm Ailsa, and this is Gillian. And you are?"

"Mitchell Davies," I say proudly. "Where are you from? I'm from Arvada, Wyoming – we have about forty to fifty people residing in my town at any given time, fun fact."

"Malibu," Ailsa says. "Forty to fifty, huh? Must be a tiny town. I couldn't imagine."

"I'm sure you couldn't," I chuckle to myself, a warm feeling blossoming across my chest. As the girls and I continue to talk, marveling over the fate that we'd gotten to meet each other so early on, I can't help the small pang at the back of my mind that tells me something is up. Like this was planned. Why would two girls from Malibu, embarking on the same trip as I, take such a wrong turn that they wound up at exactly the same bus stop as I did, in the middle of nowhere, when their travel path was so much more traveled on than this one? How did that happen?

But then again, who believes in the frightening side of things when there's such thing as coincidence?

* * *

 _ **Paige Altham, 15, Minneapolis, Minnesota**_

* * *

The open road is unforgiving.

Nearing eleven at night and I'm struggling to stay awake. Falling asleep isn't really one of my best options, at this point, anyways. It's probably not the best idea to be unconscious in the front seat of a semi-truck with a man I met three hours ago.

But he's got to be getting tired, even with that long silver thermos of coffee he sips every now and then. I can see it, too, in the wrinkles that line the corners of his sparkling blue eyes and the way his eyelids droop.

He hasn't made much effort to spark a conversation, and to be fully truthful, neither have I. When he pulled over around eightish, me being dropped off at a gas station from my previous drive, I doubt if we said five sentences to each other.

" _Need a lift?"_

" _Where you headed?"_

" _Chicago."_

" _Just the place I need to be."_

No, I don't need to be at Chicago, but it's close enough to my destination, being a major city. No, I'm headed straight for Detroit to pursue the special opportunities and the game that the girls in the bar spoke of.

Maybe I should rewind a little.

I sink down into the seat a little bit more, eyes on the endless stretch of highway in front of me, and nuzzle into my grey sweatshirt a little more. My meager knapsack lies on the floor in front of me, and I kick it with my toe. Maybe recalling the events that led me up to this will help me stay awake for a bit longer.

Minneapolis is a town chock full of rich people, middle classers, and the poor. As much as I'd love to disprove this statement, the Altham family has never been able to scrape their way out of the lower class. While the kids around me skip off to school in Timberland boots and Apple watches, I'm one of those who trudges in their Walmart sneakers and a Galaxy that's been handed down four times already, thanks to my cousins.

Even though my parents never said it or told me anything similar, one thing was astoundingly clear to me this year: I needed a job. Fake resume in hand, I plodded from fast food restaurant to thrift shop, looking for any sort of place where I could cashier or flip burgers.

However, it was _King's_ where I found my calling.

No use sugarcoating it, I'm way too young to work at a bar, let alone consume alcohol even with a fake ID. But that was the place which would provide the best pay, even with their rigid hours. It's not so fun, being fifteen and working from five till midnight and scrubbing beer glasses till your fingers are sore and your hangnails sting from getting ale scrubbed onto them. But how could I resist a place which would help me pay for groceries, whereas my parents were struggling day and night to provide enough simply for the debt?

It was worth the days I'd slink into school late, purple circles under my eyes and falling asleep in class. It was so worth it.

But it wasn't getting me anywhere.

More food on the table was nice, and we were able to afford nicer food other than the cartons of nearly-expired milk from Kwik Trip and the two-dollar bagel sleeves. But it was a redundant cycle. And as my grades slid from A's to C's, I realized that it was more poisonous to my own health than it was before.

And yet, which option could I pick? Not working, and starving half the time, but being in good mental health, or sacrificing my grades and energy for some extra food on the table?

It was a few days ago when I'd heard about Detroit and the game.

Underage girls in _King's_ provide us with a good profit, and nobody here can say that their fake ID's aren't convincing. They think they're grown-up, and they know they can get away with ordering a beer or four. They don't mind chattering loudly about their days.

This leads me to how I found out.

Three of them coming in on a Saturday night, two beers down each of their gullets, and the general atmosphere of _King's_ led one of them to be a little more loose-lipped than she would have wanted.

" _My cousin Hannah, yeah, she's ditching my aunt and uncle to go to Detroit because of that stupid game."_

" _You heard about that too?"_

" _Guys, what's the game?"_

" _Some shit in the paper about a 'game for those who need escape'; there was some random stuff about prizes and special opportunities, but I didn't pay much attention to what Hannah was saying, you know she's just a stupid-ass stoner. Probably gonna get herself run over before she gets there, anyways."_

It was then when I'd dashed over, interrogating them about everything, and after talking it over with my parents, about the allure of the prizes and special opportunities, they allowed me to go. It wasn't what any of us wanted, but it was better than nothing.

The driver's voice suddenly interrupts my thoughts.

"Chicago's about five hours away, and I'm not pulling over till we're there, kid," he gruffs. "If you need any assurance that you can sleep, just look at little Monica there." He jabs a thumb at a Polaroid of a toddler in a yellow sundress, the picture stuck in the grill of an air vent. "I'm a father, I'm trying to provide for her, nothing but good intentions. You're safe here till I drop you off, kid."

"Thank you…"

Though discomfort still flows through my veins, it's a _bit_ easier to allow my eyelids to slide shut, and for sleep to take over my fatigued body.

* * *

 _ **Arian Jenson, 15, Sarasota, Florida**_

* * *

Naomi is silent as I get out of bed.

She's always like this, sullen. She should be used to this now, this schedule. I go to her place, her parents are never home, she goes upstairs, checks that none of her brothers are there, I come – ha, ha – upstairs, we have some fun, and then I leave right after. It's been happening for about four months, and I don't get why she's not used to the schedule.

The girl thinks I love her.

Any smart girl would know that a guy who just uses a friend for sex doesn't want anything more than a good feeling and quick escape.

Escape.

"You wanna come over this weekend?" Naomi asks quietly, tugging a white shirt on.

"Can't, I got plans with some guys," I lie.

"Oh," is her dull reply.

I liked her better an hour previous, when she was all jumpy and excited to spend time with me.

"Gonna do some more Xanax and get your head all fucked up until you can't remember anything, again?"

Just kidding, I liked her better ten seconds ago, when she was all depressive and _silent_.

I turn around to face her, an annoyed smirk creeping up my face. "One hundred percent," I scoff out, like it's a joke. "I wanna see unicorns and Selena Gomez and rainbows floating around, not you."

"Funny."

I scratch my head, pulling at my hair. It's getting longer. "Look at the time, seven already. Shouldn't one of your brothers be home by now?"

"Baseball and rec soccer," Naomi mutters spitefully.

"Ahh." I nod. "Goes pretty late, doesn't it." She gives a nod, falling back on her sheets, brown hair splaying around her head like a dark halo. I can't say I'm a fan of this awkward small talk with my fuckbuddy. " _Wellllll_ , it's been nice to stay and chat, but I gotta run, Jax is expecting me back at the house."

"I love that kid," Naomi says airily.

I wink. "Who doesn't, though."

I'm out of her house within the minute, bounding out onto the sidewalk and sliding out my iPhone 6S. I might've said a few misleading things about hanging with Jax, but not really – I will be hanging with him, even if for a little bit. I just need him to give me a ride.

To the airport, that is. I'm leaving on a jet plane.

Running away from problems might be very cliché and movielike, but for me, it seems perfect. I saw the ad about Detroit in a popup, I wasn't fooling myself with anything else, and it did promise an escape.

There was also something else that I was in search for, something that I wouldn't mention to anyone – they'd think I was insane. They'd think that I already possess it, and to go off on a wild goose chase looking for it would be mad. But they're wrong, they're wrong, they're all wrong. Nobody knows me better than me. I know what I am and what I have and don't have, and I know more than anyone what I need to do.

And if leaving for Detroit to find it is what I need to do, then I'll do it.

I was never one to be afraid of going to extremes.

Nobody ever doubted that, either.

Home isn't that far away from Naomi's place. I don't spend much time there, usually, and I don't intend on this being any different. I slide my bag out from under my bed, packed lightly. There's not much in there – a pill bottle full of Xannies, a jacket, a wallet fill of bills, my phone charger. Just the bare necessities. Barely enough for anyone to notice that I'm out of the house, but not like they would anyways.

Out on the busy sidewalk, my Uber arrives. Not much to my surprise, it's another local dealer. His name is Zach but everyone calls him Zeus because of his large presence and commanding, dictatorial aura. With needle-teeth and the imprint of a hunting knife in his pocket, nobody messes with him very much, and that's how he likes it.

"The airport, eh," he growls out. I can almost taste the expensive cologne that wafts off of him. He might be rich off of drugs, but for whatever reason, Ubering is one of his passions. Maybe it's the routine of the clean car that gets him, or the sheer pleasure of breaking the speed limit by thirty miles an hour. Whatever it is, he's good at it, and good at not getting caught.

He's not king for nothing.

"The airport." I recline in my seat and watch the sunny skies outside as the car starts zipping away from the sidewalk.

There's silence lingering in the _Clive Christian 1872_ air for a while, and just as I'm congratulating myself for knowing exactly what brand of cologne was wafting through the vents, Zeus speaks. "Let me guess, family. They found out about your shit."

"No…" I sigh. "Doubt they would care much, anyways. It's something else, I don't really care to talk about. Just… I don't know, Zeus. Maybe I'll see you sometime in the future. Maybe I won't. All depends."

Silence again. Zeus is done with the conversation.

And though I should be, in a way, I'm not.

* * *

 **A/N: Trust Nobody by Flyaway Hero.**

* * *

 **Been awhile. Not much to say here, honestly… Life's good, summer has started for me, I got my braces off, life's gonna get lit. I don't know. I'm tired.**

* * *

 **Questions.**

* * *

 _ **Thoughts on each POV?**_

 _ **Chart?**_

 _ **Who are you looking forward to seeing?**_


	5. Gepetto

.

 _ **And if you bore him, you're gonna lose your soul.**_

* * *

 _ **Natalie Decker, 16, Milwaukee, Wisconsin**_

* * *

I didn't know Detroit was gonna be so damn rainy.

I'm from Wisconsin. That's a state over. We have pretty much the exact same weather as Michigan about ninety-nine percent of the time. But does Milwaukee really rain this much?

I've been in this city for four days, and so far, there's no sun on the horizon. Maybe it's foreshadowing.

But today – _finally_. The day that I can go to the building on the ad and see what it's all about.

The place is thriving, and it's not hard to grab a taxi from the place I've been staying. It's some shabby motel that costs about fifteen bucks a night, more on the rougher side of town if you ask me. I saw six prostitutes outside my window and I found a baggie of pot outside the door of the motel before I checked in. The couple staying in the room next to me banged each other for three hours straight. My room reeked of cigarettes and rust.

And yet, despite all the doom and gloom that I've been surrounded in so far, all I can think about is how exciting it is that these are my conditions for the life I'm about to start.

What will I encounter? What is this escape that was written on the shady ads? I don't know, but at this point, it's all I got. Either this or a bullet, that's what I kept telling myself. And I didn't have the cash for a good parcel of ammunition.

"Where to?" the taxi driver asks me. The frog in his throat makes him sound like he just stuffed himself with some bad burritos.

"Dane Avenue." I settle into the seat, my backpack clutched tightly to my chest. "The Kingsley Building."

The Kingsley Building turns out to be a building that looks more of a hotel than anything – but there's the same logo embedded on their front doors as was on the advertisement, plus a few kids milling around out front, trickling in. I hand my driver some cash, thank him, and slide out of the car, heart beating faster than usual.

The doors are frosted glass. I almost don't want to put a hand on them to push them open. When I do, I find them to be extremely fucking heavy; I have to push on one with my shoulder. But once I'm inside the lobby, I'm greeted with greater splendor than even the pretty-looking doors. Carved archways that lead off to different hallways, tables gilded in silver and green and purple and red and blue and pink jewels, incredibly dazzling chandeliers, and little cakes and tarts resting on lacy tablemats.

"Don't mind if I do," I breathe as I select a pistachio-green cake. It looks better than Josh Hutcherson's abs.

"You like the desserts too?"

I look up in surprise to see a pale redhead, wiping crumbs off her lips with a napkin. "I came here yesterday, but was one of the first to get in today." She thrusts out her hand, which I take in mild surprise. "I'm Paige."

"I'm Nat," I reply. "Where'd you come from?"

"Minneapolis."

"Ah, another Midwestern. I'm from Milwaukee," I say, taking my first bite of the cake. I'm met with a crunchy exterior and a creamy inside, which does indeed taste of sweet pistachio.

"That's fun! How did you get here to Detroit?"

"Took the Metro." I shrug. "Cheap and easy, I guess. You?"

"Hitchhiking," Paige says with an easy grin playing on her lips. I can tell she expects me to be impressed, curious, even, and whilst I am, I'm not gonna show that. Firstly, because I'm not much of a people person, and secondly, because I enjoy keeping people on their toes.

"That's pretty cool," I say nonchalantly. "I wonder how people from, like, Alaska got here."

"You don't really suppose there'll be people from Alaska?" her brow furrows.

I shake my head, taking another bite of the cake and talking through the food. "Who knows – they're far enough up in the ozone that they probably didn't even get the memo."

Paige laughs, then stops abruptly. "You're funny."

I shoot her a smile. "I'm trying."

A girl walks past, and her shoulder brushes mine. It's on accident, probably, but it's a little hard, and I stagger back slightly. "Hey," I bark.

She stops, brown eyes big and wide. "Oh, I'm sorry."

I could choose to make this an issue, or I could get along with my fellow campers. I choose the latter. "Whatever," I say, smiling. "I'm Nat."

"Devon Carmichael," she replies, giving me an uncertain smile. "I'm sixteen."

"Where are you from?"

"Um, Kansas." She fidgets, eyes flickering from me, to the cakes, to the silver and crystal chandelier above us, to Paige, lingering behind me. "You?"

"Milwaukee," I say. "Is Kansas nice?"

"It's great," she says a little too enthusiastically. "Lots of, um, nice people. Diners. Car garages. The usual."

"Small town or big town?"

Devon wrinkles her nose slightly, shifting. "Compared to some places, it's really small," she answers. "Under two thousand people. But it's big enough, I mean, we have an Arby's, so…"

Smalltalk is easy for me, despite the fact that I sort of hate everyone and most likely will wind up resenting ninety-nine percent of the people in the lobby. The delicious little cakes keep me from saying anything too negative or edgy, and most of the people do the talking for me. There's a kid named Etienne who tripped over his own feet and almost pissed his pants trying to apologize for running into me. There's another one named Arian, who stared at my boobs the entire time he was talking to me. Everyone kinda seems weird here.

A voice breaks out like God talking from heaven above, and I'm glad for the sudden intercession.

"Visitors," the female voice says, gruff and gritty. "Whilst there's still the rest of the day to accept future visitors, we'd like to ask those currently in the lobby to make your ways to the auditorium, room 140 down the hallway on the west side. There, you will get your rooming accommodations, goodie bags, and directions."

Goodie bags? Rooms? Instructions? Everyone buzzes with the prospect of something new and exciting happening.

This is something big, a new chapter in my life. As my feet carry me down the hall with the other kids, I can't help but glance out the window.

Clouds. Foreshadowing.

But I never was one to be too big into horoscopes and signs and all that, was I?

* * *

 _ **Raine Harvey, 14, Galveston, Texas**_

* * *

The auditorium is a _lot_ bigger than I'd thought.

They say everything's big in Texas, right from our weather to our breakfasts down to our cowboy boots. Stereotypical, but it's kinda true. I just didn't expect Detroit to be similar.

I make my way down to a random row, taking an empty seat with an uncomfortable knot twisting in my stomach. I slide my satchel off my back and hug it between my knees, looking around at the people around me.

"Mind if I sit next to you?"

I glance up to see a boy with a face full of freckles, a hood up around his head. I can't tell his ethnicity or the color of his dark eyes, but his features look relatively friendly. "Sure," I say, offering a grin.

He sits into the seat next to me, sliding his light backpack on the floor. "This place is crazier than I thought it would be," he mutters. "Where're you from?"

"Texas," I say proudly, aware of my prominent accent. "You?"

"New London, Connecticut." He raises his eyebrows. "Maybe you're heard of our track team. We went to nationals last year and the year prior."

"Hey, maybe!" I bounce slightly in my seat. "The team a few towns over from us, went, too. What's your name? I might recognize you, I have friends from the team who went to nationals."

"Antonio Chavitas." He sniggers to himself. "Probably won't recognize my name alone, though. I'm kind of a quarter in a four-man team."

I want to chat with him more – I mean, I didn't even get to properly introduce myself, which is horrible manners – but suddenly, all the people around us go quiet and our gazes drift up to the auditorium stage, on which stands a woman in a navy blazer and white pencil skirt. Her hair is smartly cut just below her shoulders in waves, and she commands an air of respect.

"Hello," she speaks, her voice much deeper than I'd expected. "My name is Kendall Ledet. And you all, about sixty-two of you, if we'd counted correctly, are here for the special opportunities and escape that we have promised."

Sixty-two? I glance around. I had expected more. Maybe some got lost in transit.

"I'm not going to say much…" Kendall raises her thin eyebrows. "But here are the basics. The rest of the guidelines, you can find in a pamphlet in your room. Firstly, rooms. You'll be getting a roommate of the same gender, not necessarily of the same age. As it so happens, there's an even number of both males and females, so that works out. Secondly, on the pillow, you'll find a schedule of your week for the next week. As for the rest of the day, you'll also be assigned a guide to help you around the building, showing you where the numerous facilities are and how to maneuver, and dinner is at six on the dot, always, in the basement lobby. If you get hungry up until then, there's always hors d'oeuvres in the club on the top floor, just to the left of the elevators. Questions?"

I sit back. I blink. I look at Antonio.

"I think we gotta get our roommates and room arrangements and we'll be fine." He smiles and on the outside it's warm, but it doesn't look one hundred percent real. Either he's as nervous as I am, or there's something up with him.

There's lists upon lists of what I assume to be randomly generated roommates, based on the names and info we gave when we checked in. I search for myself, finding it beside a name that sounds foreign. Eighth floor, room 815. I'm given a small key that looks like a credit card, which I can use to unlock the room.

The elevators are eerily silent, with the exception of kids who either made fast bonds or arrived together, chattering with nervosity. It soothes me a bit to see a small girl next to me, with striking angled features and dark hair. Her hair is fire engine red and she's knitting her brow in confusion.

"Hey," I say to her quietly, not really knowing what will develop. "I'm Raine."

"Paige," she replies with a tone to match mine. A small smile blossoms over her face. "What floor are you on?"

"Eight."

" _Nine_." She raises her eyebrows as the elevator pings, stopping at my floor. "Hey, maybe I'll see you at dinner, Raine?"

Our short-lived conversation might not mean anything right now, but I feel as if both of us know what it could hold for the future – a spot at a table with an acquaintance, a friendly face in a crowd of unfamiliar people. I nod to her politely and warmly, waving with a gentlemanly manner, and carry my satchel down the hallway, boys swarming me from either side.

Using my slim plastic key, I open the door gently to my room.

It's not even a room, it's like a small apartment. I walk into a hallway with two bathroom to my right and left – I peer in to see a granite countertop with double sinks, an ivory bathtub on clawed feet, and a shower with silver appliances. Towels are stacked in a futuristic glass basin underneath the counters. They're identical, down to the small aqua-colored travel-sized shampoo bottles and washcloths hanging from the towel racks.

Continuing down the hallway is an alcove that doubles as a kitchen, complete with a microwave and fridge. Beyond that, a closet on either side. I pick the one to the left and hang my satchel on a hook, not bothering to shut the door quite yet. On the very end lies the bedroom – two queen-sized beds with a nightstand each. At the feet of each bed is a desk and a chair, no television or computer in sight.

But beyond that, no windows like you'd expect to see in a hotel – instead, there's simply a large screen, and a remote locked into a small little pocket on the wall opposite it. I slide it out gently, confused by the colorful and patterned tiny buttons. I select one with what I see to be an orangey pink pastel picture.

The grey screen comes to life, erupting into a scene with the most brilliant sunset I've ever seen, puffy orange clouds drifting and radiant sunbeams fading as they soak into the ground. It's very bright. I find notches at the side of the remote where the volume buttons would be on a regular remote and find that the brightness can be turned down.

Fascinating.

A crash at the door makes me turn, heart pounding. "H-Hello?" I holler out. "Who is it?"

A scarily thin boy with platinum blonde hair flies into the bedroom, cheeks red and limbs flailing. His large backpack is shedding candy wrappers and loose pen caps onto the floor, yet he doesn't seem embarrassed.

"Etienne," he says, clearly out of breath from whatever stunt he just pulled at the door. " _I'm (pant)_ your roommate, I think." He looks at me awkwardly, and shoves his hand out in front of him, like an afterthought.

I take it, shake it firmly like my father taught me to. "Raine Harvey," I say, glad to finally be able to introduce myself properly. I glance down at his bony white hand, then do a double take. He's missing several fingernails and has bandages on two fingers of that hand alone.

His eyes widen slightly, and he withdraws his hand abruptly. "Rain!" he exclaims, clearly not seeing my reaction to his hand. "Like the weather."

"Yes, like the weather." I smile gently, staring at his piercing ice blue eyes. I don't know what I feel for this boy – this gawky, lanky, strange boy. Sympathy? Compassion? Hope? "And answering your question about being in the correct room - you're in the right place, Etienne. I'm pleased as punch to be your roommate, and I feel as if you and I are about to have the time of our lives."

* * *

 _ **Laurel Amory, 14, Boston, Massachusetts**_

* * *

The building is fine.

The room is decent.

My roommate is a batshit crazy idiot sent from the deepest circle of Hell by Satan himself.

And I love it.

"This place is _fabulous_ ," Chase sings out, bouncing on her bed with the energy of a squirrel who just raided a Starbucks. "Food whenever we want it and sixty-two different people to meet, what could be better?"

"Death by asphyxiation," I mutter to myself as she hops off the bed, thick hair whipping all over the place. I don't even bother to correct her that since she, indeed, is one person, there'd be only sixty-one people she'd have to introduce herself to. Sixty, counting me. And yet, I can't contain the smirk crawling up my face.

I've finally met someone to match my energy and verve.

"I heard that, silly," Chase snorts. "But whatever. Wanna go get some chow before dinner?"

"Do I!" I slide my Birks on, noting her sock feet. " _Race you_!"

"Hey, jerk!" Chase howls after me as she struggles to shove her Nikes on. I glance back as I arrive at the door, laughing to myself, only to find that she's abandoned her kicks and is sliding on the tiles like an ice skater, more involved in the race rather than her footwear.

"Yikes!" I open the door and make a mad dash for the elevator, almost at the buttons, when there's a sharp yank behind me. I let out a yelp, pulled back by the hair, and watch as Chase's arm shoots out in front of me and stabs the button with her middle finger.

"Thought I wasn't above a li'l foul play, did ya?" she breathes down my neck, her hot breath crawling down my spine. I shiver, whirling myself around to face her.

"You might've gotten to press the button, but how about only one of us can be in the elevator before it goes down?" I smirk. "Let's see how dirty work goes for that."

"So it's a shoving match?" her eyes light up. "Definitely in."

The elevator arrives with a soft but firm _ding_ , and my jaw is met with a sharp elbow as Chase rushes in, jabbing at the _door close_ button. Growling, reeling in a bit of pain, I spring forward, launching myself into the elevator. Chase's eyes widen in surprise as I grab her by the wrists, swinging her around and with a kick to her shin, I send her reeling out the door.

To my satisfaction, she staggers backwards once or twice, arms flailing, before she topples to the ground, beat.

I grin and wave at her as the elevator doors slide shut, much to her dismay.

She thought she had what it took, and honestly, she probably did. But not against me. I haven't skittered through life on mere luck, it's pure skill and energy. Against anyone else, Chase could have beaten them – she's good at hand to hand combat, or at least the few moves that I saw.

But not versus me.

I always get what I want, and I always make sure of it.

Like a polite friend, I wait by the elevators until she comes down, rubbing the back of her head and playfully scowling at me when she arrives. "Good moves back there, kid," she gruffly says. "I'll have the headache to remember it by all day."

"That's how I roll." I sigh in contentment and offer my arm for her to link hers into. "Now, food?"

The hors d'oeuvres that were promised aren't very bountiful, we soon find out. Egg rolls, puff pastries, a couple petit fours, small things like that. But we each take a little plate stacked high with cakes and tiny empanadas and sit across from each other at a table, ready to enjoy the mini feast while it's available.

"So what brings you to Detroit, Laurel?" Chase starts the conversation, searching her plate for something to start off with.

I take a big bite into a baby chocolate cake, chewing as I consider. I'm not above lying, especially since I met Chase about fifteen minutes ago, but on the flip side, what's there to hide?

Everything.

"Parents, mostly," I say blatantly. The lie slithers past my lips like a golden snake. "My dad beats my brother and my mom's never home. It's rough. Thus, I had to get the heck outta there."

If there's one thing that I hate more than anything, it's fake people – people who pretend to be something they're not. I'm being such a hypocrite right now.

"Ooh, that's horrible." Chase doesn't seem too fazed, as she sips her bubbly Perrier and taps her lips with the top of the bottle. "For me it's my mom, I guess. She can't handle the fact that I'm trying to be the best Catholic I can be – well, as far as I can be, while being myself, that is."

"Mothers, you can't live with them and you can't live without 'em," I say encouragingly to my new friend. "What about your dad?"

Chase wrinkles her nose. "Even worse, dude. He's in Congress for Louisiana. He's like a dictator sometimes, I swear. I get home twenty minutes past curfew and there's steam coming outta his nose."

"I think that's just parents, you know?" I shrug. "Any hobbies?"

"Just hanging with my boyfriend, mainly. I like cliff diving, I've been about four times. Parties are super fun, too. Oh, and running. You?"

"Soccer," I say proudly. "I've been the best in my team for-"

I stop abruptly, a sudden sick feeling crawling into my stomach. A pregnant pause passes, and I start hacking away, bending low under the table to disguise my watering eyes on a cough.

 _You're not the best on the team anymore. Hell, you're not even on the team anymore._

 _That's why you're here, isn't it?_

"Gotta go, be right back," I choke out, getting up from my chair and half-jogging to the nearest bathroom.

Lucky for me, there's nobody in the stalls. I stare at myself in the long mirror, two tears streaking down my flushed cheeks.

Did a mere thought really make me cry? Am I that _weak_?

"You're being a pussy, Laurel." I can't tear my eyes away from my face: my hollow cheeks, my straggly hair, my reddened eyes. "Once a pussy, always a pussy, you coward."

I scrub at my eyes with cold water and tie my hair up into a messy bun. After just a few moments, my exterior looks relatively normal.

I'll need normal. Normal is safe. Normal harbors me.

* * *

 **A/N: Gepetto by Belly.**

* * *

 **Happy summer, everybody. Not much to say. Sorry for the late update, can't promise another fast chapter. Reviews are really really really really appreciated. Give me your thoughts, yo.**

 **Questions:**

 ** _Thoughts on each POV?_**

 ** _General thoughts?_**


	6. Forest Green

.

* * *

 _ **This ain't as easy as it looks, I just make it look good.**_

* * *

 _ **Etienne Devere, 16, Columbia, Missouri**_

* * *

The air is warm and the shower stall is huge. I slide in, breathing in deeply as the hot water raining down around me gently brushes off the grime that's gathered on my body over the past few days.

Happy to finally cleanse my body, I poke my head out and pull on one of the drawers under the sink, faced with numerous tiny bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body gel, and numerous other cleaners. I smile, pulling out a blue container of shampoo. It says it smells like the ocean. I pop the cap and begin to squeeze gently to try and smell it when –

"FUCK!"

The shampoo spurts out of the bottle and directly into my right eye. I let out a shrill scream, staggering backwards. The slippery floor of the shower doesn't offer any mercy and it trips me, which in turn allows my head to bang off the wall with a sickening cracking noise. Now I'm on the ground, naked, shampoo in my eye, and that's not even the worst part, the worst part is Raine hooting and hollering outside because he heard the ruckus and now he's standing outside the shower, panicking and looking at the blue shampoo on my eye, on my hand, on _everywhere else_ , and no shampoo in my hair. Wonder what he thinks I'm doing.

"Etienne!" he screeches.

My right eye screwed shut, I blindly claw the air in front of me, a leg pulled in front of me to protect my dignity. "I'm okay," I croak out. "Can I have a washcloth?"

My left eye glances up to see Raine, an arm thrown across his eyes, one arm thrusting a petite cloth towards me. "You got it?"

I pull it from his grasp and scrub away at my eye. It burns, it burns, it burns, but I manage to keep the screaming at a minimum. Finally there's no more soapy shampoo in my eye socket, and the only thing to focus on is the back of my head, wailing and bitching about how it hurt when I fell against the wall.

Just my luck.

"Um, Etienne?" Raine's twangy voice breaks through the sound of rushing water. "Dinner's in about ten minutes. I could wait for you, if you like."

"Go without me," I holler back. "Tell 'em I'll come later."

"I'm not gonna go to dinner without you…" I can almost hear the frown in his voice. "We're roomies! We're gon' go together."

 _So kind_ , I think, gritting my teeth and carefully squirting out a new shampoo out into my hand. I like the kid. He's only a couple years younger than me but ages more mature, and more polite than I could ever hope to be. I bet he always gets A's and has never taken more than a sip of alcohol. A real mama's boy from the South, complete with the accent and everything.

Me, I'm from a middle state. Missouri's right smack dab in the middle of the country, and I like to think that's how I am, too. In the middle.

"Etienne?" Raine's voice calls out.

"Be out in a minute!" I scrub my hair, shake off the excess water, and start dashing out of the stall to grab a towel. Maybe not the best idea, I realize, as my wet feet make contact with the stone floor and slide, slide, slide until my naked body connects with the ice cold ground with another crack.

" _Youch!"_

"Etienne!" Raine, panicked, throws open the door, only to let out an even more panicked shriek once he sees me on the ground. "You're naked!"

I throw myself onto my stomach, guarding my dignity, and glance upwards. "Well damn it, Raine, I never said I was wearing clothes!"

Raine's eyes are heavenbound now, his chest rising and falling rapidly with every thin breath he takes. "Do you… do you want a towel or anything?"

"I was going to get a towel until I wound up down here," I chuckle, ignoring the throbbing pain in my shoulder. "But if you could toss one my way that'd be appreciated, I don't think I'm going to try and stand any time soon."

Moments later, a fluffy towel is thrown in my general direction. I appreciate the dedication.

It's a matter of ten minutes later when I'm finally ready and for the most part, injury-free. I can't get past the beating that my eye took in the shower, but the white-hot searing is gone. Clad in a thin pair of blue joggers and a grey shirt, I stride out to where Raine is fiddling with the projection screen. Right now he's got it set to an image of a pier, stormy sky in the distance as the papery boats bob up and down on the green waters.

"This shit's so cool," I say, eagerly taking a seat next to him. "Think you could make it look like Los Angeles?"

Raine gives me a side smile as he presses a couple buttons on the remotes. Before I know it, before us is a dark image as if we're standing on a rooftop. Yellow windows illuminate the black night, but there's the white-capped waves of the Pacific in the distance. I take an intake of breath, watching the people, tiny as ants, walking along the sidewalks and beach.

"This little device can take us anywhere we want to go!" Raine declares excitedly. He raises his eyebrows at me. "It almost made me forget about dinner."

"Ooh, supper," I say, leaping to my feet. "Think they got some fried chicken and cornbread down there, buddy? You'd like that, right?"

Raine looks utterly confused. "I'm not black…"

I do a double take. "No, of course not, but you're from, like, the South, so I figured…"

"We like briskets and blueberry cobbler more than anything, really," Raine says, giving me a pointed but polite look. "You're talking to the wrong person about cornbread."

He strides ahead of me, and though I'm embarrassed, I can't help myself from grimacing at his back. ' _You're talking to the wrong person about cornbread, pardner_ ,' I mimic his tone to myself.

"Fucking cornbread."

* * *

 _ **Devon Carmichael, 16, Ness City, Kansas**_

* * *

My heart thuds against my chest as I survey the room.

I got to the dining hall late, and I'm not even hungry. All I put onto my tray was a scoop of Caesar salad, a slab of buttered bread, and a bowl of clear brown broth. Comfort foods. Honestly, it's kind of beyond me why I even bothered to come down here. Why feel the need to associate with a bunch of strangers who I've never met before, to my own discomfort?

Someone nudges me from behind, and I start. "You wanna sit down together?"

I glance backwards, my eyes meeting those of a tanned boy wearing a maroon hoodie. The first thing I notice is his unusually large neck. The second thing is the smirk that he wears like a medal. And yet I say "sure", and allow him to lead me to a table off to the side.

"I'm Devon," I blurt out after we sit down.

He raises a pair of thick eyebrows. "Arian."

"Where are you from?" I pick up my spoon, then put it down again, unsure of what to dig into first.

"Florida." His lips break into a white smile. "It took quite a while to get up here."

"Oh, I bet. I had a sixteen hour drive."

"Sixteen hours!" Arian seems surprised. He cuts into his chicken breast, but his eyes are locked with mine. "Where did you come from?"

I bite my tongue, wondering how much harm it'd do if I let him in on where I'm from. Deciding not a lot, I casually reply "Kansas."

"Oh, like Dorothy." Arian sniggers. "Did you bring Toto along, too?"

"Yeah, he's parked in the parking garage half a mile away for an undetermined time." I smile meekly.

He rolls his eyes. "Your witchy bubble is supposed to be the transportation, silly."

"Oh, that's down there too!" I bat my lashes playfully. "I just left everything Oz in the parking garage."

"You're funny." He smirks.

"Tell me about yourself," I reply coyly.

Arian glances heavenward, wetting his lips with his tongue before looking back down at me. "Hard to tell you about myself when I'm one giant sob story," he says.

I shrug. I slide my spoon into the brown broth and scoop some up, making a motion to eat it. "I don't mind, sweetie. I love a good cry as much as anyone else does."

Arian starts talking about his parents with a cautious tone that he chases with large bites of pepperoni pizza and Spanish rice. He says that his mom and him barely talk; his dad's gone too much to interact with like a regular father and son should. But I can tell he's holding things back by the way his eyes are trained on his bottle of Arizona, and how they flicker up to me whenever he says something especially slowly.

It seems like he's got a rough past like mine. I can tell by the way his eyes sparkle with a silent tear for just a second, before he harshly blinks them away and continues talking. I remember talking to the school counselor like this; talking about my dad's drinking issues and how much I miss him. Wanting to talk about my mother and how disgusted I was that she was wasting her talents, but holding myself back. Choking back tears as I recounted the helplessness I felt when I felt my sister, Darcy, slipping away from me with every cry I heard from her late at night and every morning at the breakfast table. I wanted to talk about Darcy's dead eyes staring listlessly into her bowl of scrambled eggs and how just months before we had used to be best friends by blood; instead, she was just a girl who looked like me, whose room I lived next to.

I wanted to tell the counselor all of that, but I had no doubt that she could easily press 9-1-1 on her shiny black office phone and mouth of to the police what my mom was doing. Illegal stuff didn't fly back in Ness City. Alcoholism was a lesser crime – although, when my dad's head got bashed in by a rearview mirror and his stomach full of rum exploded on the pavement, would I really have agreed that prostitution was supposed to be worse?

"And my sister, Jen – I guess Jennifer, that's what she wants to be called – she and I never really talk, either. If I had to reinvent my family, I'd probably just have a bunch of brothers my age and a mom that actually made meals for me after school and shit." He sniffles kind of loudly and tries to disguise it with a cough. "Allergies."

"Hey, love," I say, extending my hand out to him. I pat his wrist. "I get you, really I do. You don't have to hide your 'allergies' from me."

Arian raises his thick eyebrows. "You get me? How?"

"My dad's dead." I withdraw my hand and scoop up another spoonful of broth. "Alcoholism. And my sister and mom haven't been too talkative after that." The practiced story comes to my lips so easily.

"But they still love you?"

This catches me off-guard. "Huh?"

"They still love you." Arian frowns. "You think they're not talking to you because they're too focused on themselves or something, but they're just mourning. The feelings between you all are still good. Your dad just made them super sad, so they don't talk as much."

I look at his sincere face and think _oh, honey, if only it was that easy_.

He bites his lip and seems to rethink that. "I mean… I don't know anything about you. I don't. I'm probably… like… way off. But you don't know anything about me, either."

"Yeah?" I chortle, masking a pained cough. "Tell me something I don't know about you."

"I'm fucking this girl, Naomi, and she thinks I love her," he says off-handedly. "I weigh, like, one-fifty. And my favorite food is Sunchips."

He keeps blabbering on about random, stupid facts but I can't get over what he just said. Do Mom and Darcy still love me? Or have I just pushed them away so far, that it appears like there's no love?

When Mom started leaving more and more, always finding a new man to seduce so the groceries could be paid for and my school textbooks wouldn't put us into debt, no doubt I got angry with her. When conversations with Darcy grew more and more listless and dull, I must've lashed out a few times.

The silence that remained in my house might've just been caused by me.

Could it have?

Or am I right – Darcy and Mom would've tried to rope me into the new 'family business' before I was even of legal age? Was I correct for being angry all the time?

Do they still love me?

Do I still love them?

Who can tell?

* * *

 **Payton West, 15, Detroit, Michigan**

* * *

"Okay guys, this sushi really, really sucks ass. Either they got some fake Asians in there, or these Asians have never heard of _wasabi_."

Smiling down at my iPhone, I slide the sushi plate to the side. Next up: crab legs.

"These have a nice reddish-orange texture, kinda like the color of James Charles' eyeshadow when he tries to go for a 'sunset' look." I set my iPhone against my water cup, trying to get a nice angle that accentuates the smidge of highlight on my nose. Cracking the crab claw, I use a tine of my fork to fish out some of the soft meat inside.

"A little too salty… feels like gristle." I grimace, but my expression quickly turns to pleasure when I dig inside a crab leg. "Much better, much more firm and tasteful. So far, the legs are a surefire winner."

"Mind if I join you?"

I startle, crab leg flying across my tray and right onto my open-faced turkey-tomato-pesto Panini that I picked apart a few minutes ago. Angry that the voice ruined my video, I whirl around a face with tired, bored eyes and a fuck ton of freckles.

"Do you mind?" he sighs. "There's no place else to sit, and you're alone at a table."

I shrug, sort of embarrassed that I've been caught. "I guess. There's not much time left for dinner, though."

The boy presses his lips together and raises his eyebrows. "I don't need to eat here. I can just shove some food in my pocket and eat back at my room."

I press the red button on my iPhone, ending the video early – _abort video. Sigh._

"Also, like, I don't mean to be rude, but the fuck were you doing over here, talking to yourself?" His eyes search me.

I give a nervous laugh. "Just filming a video. For Youtube."

"You're a Youtuber?"

 _One with three thousand four hundred twenty-six subscribers, and no less._ "Yeah."

The boy sniffs, shoveling some mashed potatoes into his mouth. He glances back at me. "You famous or something?"

"Yeah," I say confidently. "My whole school's heard of me, and I have fans in every state. My numbers only keep climbing, you know."

He grumbles and says something that sounds like ' _deluded'_. I don't mind – his freckled opinion doesn't matter to me, not when he's that busy climbing carb mountain.

"Hey, what's your name, anyway?"

His big, sad eyes look back up at me. "Antonio," he says slowly. "You?"

"Payton West," I drawl. "I think it's kind of a cool name, because there's hardly any famous people named Payton. I mean, obviously there's the Wests – Kanye and Kim. But I don't intend on making a porno to get famous." _I mean, not until my career starts to struggle._

"Uh, what about that one Payton from Disney? The blonde?" Antonio looks back down and starts buttering a dinner roll.

I roll my eyes. "No guys named Payton, anyways." I watch him as he scarfs down three rolls in a row, then reaches for his cup full of green. "What's in your cup?"

"Green juice," he says gruffly. "Kale, kiwi, broccoli, all that."

"You're a runner, then!" Satisfied with my conclusion, I fold my arms and grin toothily at him. "Carbs and green juice, you've gotta be an athlete."

"Nice deduction, Sherlock." Antonio gazes at me. "I suppose you ruled out the fact that I just really like bread and smoothies, yeah?"

"But you're not fat," I counter. "Oh, once I tried to go on one of those healthy juice cleanses. I went on runs every morning and everything, but I could never hold the camera still enough to record a decent vlog, so that always stopped."

"You know, you said you were famous, but I can't say I've ever heard of a Payton West." Antonio squints. "If I looked you up, what would I find?"

I laugh lightly. "Nothing but my school picture, bud. I use an alibi online. If you haven't seen my face by now, you must never go on Youtube. I…" I stammer for a second, realizing he's losing interest. "I have a Twitter, too, if that's your sort of thing. I speak out against the corrupt government and I plug my channel with updates and all that. It's a good system."

"I don't have a Twitter or a Youtube account…" He smirks. "Guess I'm missing out."

"It's okay!" I chirp. "It's never too late to make one."

Antonio stands, the bell clattering in a raucus rhythm as he picks up his tray. "Yeah… I guess." He starts walking towards the tray conveyor belt, before turning back and nodding delicately towards me. "Nice meeting you, Payton. Maybe I'll see you around, kid."

"Hard to forget a face like this," I tease, grinning as I watch his tall form striding off, getting lost in the sea of bodies. Sliding my phone into my pocket, I pick up my own two trays – littered with half-eaten foods that I've torn apart and spit out for my own pleasure – and dump them off.

It's nice making friends like Antonio. I'm no idiot – I can tell that he's a tough crowd. His eyebrows make him look angry. And his eyes make him look gloomy. But that's okay! He seems very decent.

I wonder what he thinks about me. Pretty, probably. I know I'm not ugly; I always do as much as I can to keep my eyebrows neat and my face soft and supple. He probably thinks I'm overconfident. But that's fine, it doesn't matter. Confidence is a blessing that not that many people have obtained. Sure, sometimes it delves into cockiness, but we all have our flaws.

I remember Antonio's big eyes, how they sort of drooped downwards. He sure did look blue. But if I cheered him up even a little bit, then my work here is not in vain.

My whole job is to make people like him smile.

* * *

 **A/N: Forest Green by Odd Future.**

* * *

 **It's literally been over a year since I last updated. Woo! If you're close with me on here, then you've been keeping yourself updated on my life through my snap stories and the sort, and if not, then you must've thought I died or something. Close enough. A load of stuff has happened in the last year. I hated fanfiction, I quit "for good" and then… this summer… I starting reading some old SYOT's and I was like wow, I miss making blogs. I miss getting reviews. I miss writing tributes. So I put my mind to work and, well, I cranked out a new chapter.**

 **Am I back for good? Who knows. I'm gonna be starting on the next chapter as soon as this one's up, but will I ever finish it by next week or even next month? Who knows.**

 **All I know is that your support is still appreciated as much as ever, and you can show your support through a review ;)**

 **Happy Tuesday!**


	7. Losing Your Mind

.

* * *

 _ **A telescope's eyesight can't reveal the things I wanna see.**_

* * *

 _ **Chase Kennedy, 15, Lafayette, Louisiana**_

* * *

Kendall Ledet stands on the stage silently as everyone files into the auditorium. By my side, Laurel bounces quietly, radiating pent-up energy. She reminds me of me.

"Hey," I say, poking her in the thigh. "Cut out out, kid."

"You're ten months older than me, not ten years," scoffs Laurel.

"Attention, everyone." Kendall waves her hand and the room falls silent. I glance around in awe at how fast her command was obeyed. "As a sort of getting-to-know-you activity, my partners, Elle, Sierra, Colton, and Kenny, are going to be going around, passing out quizzes for you to fill out." She gestures to three figures at her side, all looking about to be my age – a petite girl with thick eyelashes, a scrappy female with lavender and periwinkle hair, an older guy with severe eyebrows and an incomplete mullet, and a nondescript brunette boy. "It's required that you fill out every answer truthfully and however you like – this will just test your aptitude and skill level for the activities we'll be setting up in the days to come."

"The first night and there's already a test?" I whine. The nondescript boy strides down my aisle, offering me a piece of paper and a pen with a silent smile. "I didn't know I was shipping myself off to boarding school."

"I think it'll be fun," Laurel says happily. "Look at this! The first question just asks us how old we were when we first considered ourselves 'mature'."

I turn to my own piece of paper, signing my name and examining the first question. _13_ , I scribe carefully, stealing a look at Laurel's page. _10_. Yikes.

The questions that they're asking us are odd, but easy and even a little fun to answer. When asked if I've ever hated someone, my mom drifts across my mind, but delicately put ' _no_.'

Do you think killing is ever justified? Explain why or why not.

 _Under the Ten Commandments, killing is a very severe sin,_ I write. _However, my personal opinion is that if it's absolutely necessary, in the case of a woman being chased by a probable rapist, if she drew a gun on him and fired then it would be justified._

Odd question to have. I frown slightly, but move on to a question that asks me what three items I'd like to have with me on a deserted island. Fun!

The quiz doesn't take very long, maybe ten minutes. Before I know it, Laurel and I are bouncing out into the lobby, searching for any desserts that Kendall or the staff might've set out. No such luck.

"Well, this is disappointing," I huff.

"Shh," Laurel giggles. "We could stand to fast a little after the cakes we chowed down a few hours ago."

"Yeah, but eating is a pastime." I pout dramatically. "Now there's nothing to do, and I am bored."

Just as soon as the words leave my lips, I spy a small herd of kids in the corner, near the elevators, and with a quick nod to Laurel, we're sneaking up on them like vultures to a fresh kill.

"What'd you put for the desert island question?" one of them asks – a blond boy, younger looking than me.

A very tall, very slim, very pale boy answers him. "I put Tictacs, a bottle of Captain Morgans, and a flare."

"Handling firearms while drunk and 'tac-ed up?" that one redheaded girl, Paige I think, shakes her head. "That's an accident waiting to happen."

"But practical, right?" The pale boy stammers. "I mean, Tictacs are just delicious, alcohol makes the time pass, and a flare's for when someone really needs to get into contact with you."

"Hey," I interject myself into the conversation, although not rudely, "I remember once at my Sunday school that there was this question about 'which food would you like to eat for the rest of your life, if that was the only thing you could eat?' I thought long and hard about it and me being the smart aleck, I put Rocky Road ice cream. The answer was nothing, because you need all five or six food groups just like you need all three parts of the Holy Trinity or something like that, but I think it proved a point."

"That's real smart," the pale boy breathes.

I smirk. "I try my hardest," I chirp.

"So what'd you put for the desert island question?" The blond boy's eyes gaze upwards at me.

"Oh, you know, the basics. Prayer pamphlet, satellite television to watch soccer matches, and a jug of iced tea." I smile. "That's all you need, right?"

"I put a satellite television, too!" The blond boy smiles. "To watch the Rockies. They're my favorite team."

"I love soccer, but I just can't pick a favorite team!" I laugh lightly. "I love Japan, their goalie looks like the cutest little teddy bear, but they're never gonna recover from that L that they took against _us_ a few years ago."

"What's your name?" the boy asks, abruptly adding, "I'm Mitchell. It's nice to meet you."

"Chase." I smile around at everyone, only now remembering Laurel. I grab her sleeve and pull her close. "This is my best pal Laurel, we met roughly four hours ago and we're soulmates, I thought you all should know. What are your names?"

"Etienne."

"Paige."

 _This is where I'm happiest_ , I realize, as the conversation turns to the question about opinions on the death penalty. _Right here, with like-minded people who're just as kind as me. Kind people rock!_

I glance sideways at Laurel, and then I think about my boyfriend back home and all I've done in the past couple months, and then I realize, oh, yikes, I probably haven't been so kind to _everyone_. I try my best, really I do. Sometimes life just gets in the way. Kindness is not a requirement if you're going through things, right?

The conversation winds down and we go our separate ways, and I poke fun at Etienne for getting his arm caught in the elevator door. The vibes here are so good.

I'm about to take a running leap onto my bed when I realize, with a start, that there's clothes hanging in the closet that weren't there before.

"Hey, any of these yours?" I say off-handedly to Laurel, palming through hangers and hangers of clothes straight from an H&M catalog.

"Not a one," she mutters. "Are they for us?"

I pluck a thin pink and white nightshirt, holding it up to my body. Just a little bit, just the way I like. "If they weren't before, they are now!" I declare.

Within ten minutes, we're both in bed, quiet and tired but too excited to go to sleep quite yet. The nightshirt is cool against my bare skin. The white duvet feels like a very heavy cloud.

"You're not gonna go to bed any time soon," I say to Laurel.

"You're right."

"You want to go on a boy's floor and see if any of them wanna play a game?"

Even in the dark, Laurel's bright white teeth glimmer like the Cheshire cat. "You already know I'm game."

* * *

 _ **Antonio Chavitas, 15, New London, Connecticut**_

* * *

Arian won't turn the damn lights off.

"It's late," I say.

"It's ten," he says.

"You're a dumbass," I say.

"You're a lameass," he says.

Touché.

I sigh, sinking further down into my pillow. I've always had a sort of schedule, and it always made me feel prepared, in a way. I like going to bed at ten, then waking up at six, grabbing two pieces of toast for breakfast, and going out for a jog to the McDonalds a mile away and back. Showering, doing the dishes, getting dressed, jogging off to school and then the whole routine thing starts all over again. Behavioral science, then gym, then pre-calc, then lunch, then computer science, then English for dummies, then track practice and dinner with my buddies, then I go home, do homework, avoid my dad, and go to sleep. It's what I always do.

And now this thick bitch is messing up my sleep pattern. I'm gonna be so tired in the morning.

"Yo, you know what time we gotta wake up tomorrow or is it a whole sleep-in kind of situation?" I ask him, rolling over to face him in the next bed.

He's staring at his phone, but in this totally spaced kind of way. "Ahh," he drawls. "Think somebody said eight. Could be wrong, though."

Eight. That's not bad, but by the time six o'clock rolls around, my legs are gonna be kicking the sheets off of the bed. Aching for a run. I can already feel it.

My dad never got me the proper medications for anxiety after my mom. I miss when my mom was around. She made me soup and lasagna and she bought me new shoes every track season. She always used to joke with me whenever she made enchiladas at Christmas, that one day she'd be gone and I'd have to make the enchiladas myself. I'd lean against her soft sweater, close my eyes, and smell the habanero. The enchiladas were my favorite food.

I haven't eaten an enchilada since.

"Can you please turn those lights out?" I say again, staring over at Arian. He's not even looking at his phone anymore, he's staring at the wall. "Dude, what are you looking at?"

He glances at me and gives a half-laugh. "The wall, I think."

I raise an eyebrow. "Are you on drugs?"

Arian sniggers, flinging his arms up in a casual 'who knows' pose. "Search my bag, dude! Find what you want!"

Accepting his invitation, I get out of my bed and stick my hand down his thin backpack. I feel money, a telltale leather strip that could be a wallet, and a bottle. I slide it out, gazing.

"You brought Xanax?"

He shrugs. "It helps me calm down, bro. You should take one. Helps you fall asleep on the spot."

I eye the pills carefully. I've never delved too deep into drugs. Never wanted to fuck up my perfect record and get tricked out of track. I've smoked pot maybe twice and I was on something back when my mom bought me pills for my anxiety. Does this count as something I'd need to take a pill for?

Looking back up at Arian, totally spaced, I decide it is.

And it's great. Not long after I swallow the little white pill, I slide in between my covers and it's like I've been tired for ages. I fall asleep right away!

Unfortunately, it's not a peaceful sleep.

I don't know how long I've been sleeping, but I know that I definitely _didn't_ fall asleep with another person in my bed. I can feel a body next to me, warm and solid and so _alive_.

I slowly turn my head to see a pair of closed eyes with eyelashes too long to be Arian's.

Limbs thrashing, eyes burning from the light, I throw myself into a sitting position and whip my head to Arian's bed.

There's a girl in his bed, too.

Except I wouldn't exactly say his bed if she's sitting on top of it… on top of _Arian_ …

I let loose a shriek when I realize that she's riding him.

"What the _fuck_ , dude!" I screech, stomach crawling. I leap out of bed as his head snaps towards me, eyes super wide. "If you're gonna bone someone at, at, at one AM have the decency to not do it in the same room where I'm sleeping!"

"Bro, I didn't think you were gonna wake up-"

"You gave me Xanax so you could meet up with your booty call in _our_ dorm?" I shriek. I point at the girl in my bed. "What, is she supposed to be my fuckbuddy?"

The girl clambers off of Arian. I recognize her as Chase Kennedy, pale and confused-looking, but not ashamed. She hugs a pillow close to her chest and sits on the edge of his bed, gazing up at me. "Sorry to bother your sleep," she drawls. "Arian told me you fell asleep, like, two hours ago."

"And she's not my booty call," Arian snorts, staring at the back of Chase. "She's the one who came knocking at our door, asking if we wanted to play a game. I mean, I tried to wake you up, but…" he chuckles and scratches the back of his neck. "You were really snoozing out there."

"So how the fuck did her friend get in my bed?" I shudder, realizing thankfully that at least this girl's got a top on. "And how the fuck did 'a game' turn into the loudest fuck-festival since Woodstock?"

"She was cold," Chase says simply. "And Laurel fell asleep and Arian and me, we both took a Xanax." She glances towards Arian, smirking. "Hey, maybe I'll see you round, but I think I'm pretty tired now, too."

She slides a pink nightshirt on, taps her friend on the shoulder. The brunette awakens with a startle. "W-What?"

"Wanna come back to our room now, Laurel?" Chase cracks her knuckles. My skin is crawling.

"I… I guess so." Laurel wipes her eyes and yawns. She looks at me. "Uh, did you and me do anything…?"

"I think the fuck _not_ ," I growl. "Get out of my bed!"

She shrugs, unshaken just like her pale comrade. "Not much of a loss, I guess. I'm too tired for anything tonight anyways."

The girls leave after a bit of banter between them, and, shaken, I slip into bed once again. "Hey, you know that you're-" I start, glaring over at Arian's bed, but – much to no surprise – he's dozed off already.

It really sucks being the pure friend.

* * *

 _ **Ailsa Aleese, 15, Malibu, California**_

* * *

There's a knock at the door.

I awaken with a startle, expecting to hear the calming rush of waves, but hearing only radio silence. I strain my ears and – _knock, knock, knock_ – there it is again. I glance over to Devon. She's out like a light.

I tread softly down the hallway to the door, hallway lights illuminating a golden bar underneath the door. I'm greeted with a soft smile. "Hi, Ailsa."

A smile breaks out before I can help it. "It's, like, two AM, Gil."

Gillian pouts. She hugs herself, and I notice that instead of taking one of the cute pairs of pajamas hanging in the closets, she's wearing one of her old California sweatshirts. "I can't sleep. My roommate snores and she's so rude." She slowly takes my wrist and our eyes meet. "I missed you."

My eyes flicker out into the hallway. Silence. "You can sleep with me, if you want," I offer.

We silently tread back to my bed, and snuggle up against each other like old times. Even in the dark, I can see her eyes, wide and nervous-looking. "What's up?" I whisper, turning onto my side.

Gillian shrugs, trying to give me a reassuring smile. I can tell it's fake. "For real, Gil."

"This place is just weird," she whispers. "We're so far from home and nobody knows where we are. I know I wanted to get away from my parents, but I just miss them."

I stay silent for a second, knowing that it'd seem cocky if I told her how much fun I've been having. "At least they're, like, totally worrying about you now. You showed them."

"You don't have a serious bone in your body…" Gillian gives me a sad smile. "Your parents wouldn't worry, would they?"

"They let me do a lot of what I want," I say. "Remember that one week I just spent sleeping over at your house, and they texted me maybe three times to ask how my grades were doing?"

"Your parents are so cool." Gillian shivers, snuggles down further into the covers. I watch with half-lidded eyes as she stretches her arms high above her head.

"So are we," I say.

She gives me a side smirk, rolling over to face me completely. "You've got that right."

I watch over the course of the next hour as Gillian goes from giggly and all sleepover-party-hyped to plain sleepy and finally, I watch as her eyelashes flutter with every breath she takes as she falls under the veil of sleep. She's such a beautiful girl, with thick dark brown curls and long lashes. I can't remember a time when she and I were anything less than best friends.

The truth is, I would probably do anything for Gil, and she knows it. She's always been the leader in our relationship, the more dominant one, and maybe I've felt for her as more than a friend, once or twice. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't really matter how I feel. I'll just be whatever she wants me to be.

Smiling to myself, I turn over to face Devon's bed, and fall asleep fast.

Morning breaks through, but I can't see it. I'm awakened by Devon's movements. I watch her pull a pair of light grey jeans on, a pale blue sweater, and her shoes from yesterday. She notices my gaze and laughs lightly.

"Looks like you found a snuggle buddy."

I shrug, swinging my legs out of bed and glancing back at Gillian. Her curls are splayed all over the pillow, and she's taking up more room than she should, as always. "She said her roomie snored. I decided to be charitable, obviously." I wink at Devon so she knows I'm playing.

She giggles. "You two better hurry up and get ready. One of Kendall's groupies came knocking at our door and said breakfast is at eight-thirty, and it's eight-twenty right now."

"Awesome!" I sing out, flying to the closet and grabbing the first blue piece of clothing I can find; a flowy romper. "Do you think they'll have biscuits? I'm really feeling a biscuit right about now."

"Dunno," Devon sighs. She gazes at the grey screen for a moment before slowly reaching over, grabbing the remote, and pressing a button that makes it explode in a flurry of green and grey. A misty forest.

"You like forests?" I say conversationally as I make my way into a bathroom, finding a hairbrush. I tug it through my dark brown knots carefully.

"Not much more than I like tundras or cities, I guess." I hear the telltale click of a button, which means she's changed the picture. "I've always been a rustic cabin, wood crackling in the fireplace kinda girl. Homey."

"I couldn't ever stand that!" I gag playfully, skittering out to the bedroom and chucking the hairbrush at Gillian. It hits her in the shoulder with a soft crack, and she jerks herself awake, confused. I laugh. "I'm much more of a beachy kind of person! I used to be able to see the Pacific out my window every morning. Now, we don't even have any windows."

"It's a change, for sure," Devon drawls. She stares at Gillian, who's rubbing her eyes and yawning. "Morning, sleepyhead. Can I ask what your name is?"

Gil laughs embarrassedly. "Gillian," she says. "Sorry to intrude. My roommate could be the Abominable Snowman, the way she growls in her sleep. I gotta have it all peace and quiet, you know?"

"I getcha." Devon stands. "I'll leave you two to it, I wanna get an early start on the pancakes."

"I feel like she didn't like me," Gillian says once Devon's gone.

"What do you mean?"

"It's a vibe." She frowns. "Like when I thought that Casey Evans was cheating on Rachel. He definitely was!"

"Your head was too far up Casey's ass to see that," I tease, "and you're the one that he cheated on her with!"

Gillian snickers, standing and drawing herself to my side. "You always got that eye for detail, don't ya?"

I sit back on the bed, watching Gillian as she chooses a simple white shirt and pair of striped shorts from the closet. Last night I was so tense about the 'activities' that we'd be doing today, I think I chattered Devon's ear off. I was afraid of being alone, I suppose. I always keep a bright outlook on things, and I was definitely so excited for a new adventure, but sometimes it's just hard to keep that in mind when you don't have somebody by your side.

But, I realize as Gillian grins, turning to me and offering her arm out so I can link mine in hers, that as long as I've got a friend or two by my side, this adventure will be easier than I've been thinking.

* * *

 **A/N: Losing Your Mind by Raury ft. Jaden Smith.**

* * *

 **First I don't update for thirteen months, and then I update twice in two days? What is this?**

 **Whatever. You all deserve it. That, and I'm seriously getting back in love with this story and the characters. I'm so excited to fill out everyone's plots and just to keep progressing on with this story!**

 **Reviews are appreciated as always, on everyone's POV and just a general 'what are you excited for' and 'how is my writing doing'! Have a great day!**


	8. Stranger

_**.**_

* * *

 _ **Don't you be ashamed, show your face if you feel a way.**_

* * *

 **Arian Jenson, 15, Sarasota, Florida**

* * *

Breakfast drags on.

The lunchroom as a whole is pretty loud today – everyone's excited about the new clothes and the pancake buffet and the activities to come. They're finally going to get what they risked their own safety and relationships for. They're gonna get what they've been wanting. So will I.

So why aren't I happier?

Devon sits down at the chair next to me, offering a close-lipped smile before digging into scrambled eggs. "Excited?" I say, hopeful for a distracting conversation. She only shrugs, taking a sip of juice.

Nothing. She's like a fish that just won't bite.

I like people like Devon – genuine people. They're so hard to come by. Back home, I have friends, but they come and go. I have a couple worth naming, Darion and Jax. But Darion's even higher than I am, usually, and Jax is just… there. He's a great kid. He offered to give me a tattoo with a needle and a piece of string for five Addies once. But he's kinda absent in mind.

They never gave me what I really wanted – but that's what I'm here for, isn't it?

Kendall strides into the room, her high heels making click-clacking noises on the stone. Everyone goes silent, not a sound except for forks scraping plates. Everyone's waiting with bated breath to hear what she's got to say about today.

She clambers onto a chair – how ungraceful, I think disdainfully, for a place that's so elegant everywhere. I feel as if she'd have a ruby-lined stepstool or something.

"Good morning, everyone," she announces with a clear voice. She lifts a brow. "I trust you all slept well." I can almost feel Antonio glaring a hole into my back. Chase whips her head around from a few tables over and smirks at me. I have to hold back a chuckle.

"Today we'll be splitting you all up into – ah, groups of about twelve. We had some late attendees last night – that brings our total to seventy-two here. It's been decided that we'll split groups up by room numbers, so you'll be paired with your roommate, and most likely, the children who've got rooms next to you."

"Is it co-ed?" A boy shouts from the front.

Kendall nods, smiling. "Split into six girls, six boys."

"What if we don't want to be with our roommate?" Another kid shouts. If Antonio wasn't sitting at the table behind me, I'd be sure it was him.

Kendall shrugs. "Tough luck. But you'll be in a group with ten others, besides your roommate – I'm sure that you could find a formidable friend within that group." She waits for a moment for anyone else to shout something out. "Anything else? Good. I'll be reading off room numbers, and those with the room number I'm reading off should follow a certain mentor into one of the corridors – you might notice that we've only got four mentors, where there will be six groups." Kendall smiles tightly, gesturing towards Kenny, Elle, Sierra, and Colton, at a smaller table near the front. "I'll be leading a group, as will my partner, Jericho. You haven't met him yet – he's more of a behind-the-scenes kind of guy, but I'll assure you, he's just as qualified as any of us here. He'll be joining us shortly."

The room buzzes. Everyone's eyeing up the four people in front like snakes eyeing up a potential victim – _mentors_ , they hiss. _When half of them look like our age. They're hardly teenagers themselves._

Another click-clack of shoes echoes down the hallway, and I smirk when I see the male version of Kendall – lanky, raven-haired, just as severe-looking. That must be Jericho.

"I hope I get him," I whisper to Devon. "He looks so cool."

Kendall starts listing off room numbers, and the corresponding residents stand, leaving their trays behind as they head off. The first group is taken by Jericho, much to my dismay. The second, by Colton.

"Rooms 815. 816. 817. 900. 901. 902."

My room! I stand, gleefully seeing that Devon's standing up, too. I catch the eye of Chase and her roomie. There's a redheaded girl. Two youngish boys, sitting right by each other. The palest guy I've ever seen. A girl with harsh eyebrows. A brunette girl, frowning down at the curly-haired companion beside her, who didn't stand up. A kid with a strong jaw and panicked deer-in-headlights look. And finally, Antonio.

"You'll be with Elle." Kendall smiles shortly at us.

Silent, we all follow the tiny blond girl into a corridor. She looks about my age.

"Bet you're all wondering what's going on!" she says gleefully as soon as we're out of the lobby. "You're not gonna see the other kids for a while, I mean, not until tonight. We're gonna do activities all together today!"

"We won't even see them at lunch?" One of the brunette girls frowns.

Elle giggles. "Don't worry, silly. You'll make friends here. This is a pretty diverse group, I'd say."

"You're including yourself, obviously." My voice sounds louder than I'd intended, but it still garners a few chuckles. I grin.

I like being a smart-ass, but the attention's better when you're bringing some Svedka to a corner party or when you show up to school with a black eye and say that you got decked by a homeless dude who tried to steal your wallet. That's honor. Being a smart-ass is just annoying. Still fun.

Elle whirls around, furrowing her brow. She looks like a very pissed golden retriever. "You know, I'm gonna take that as a compliment, since there's hardly any blondes here," she says huffily. "I went through a lot to be here, and I'm not boutta be undermined by some kid from the slums."

"Actually, I'm from Sarasota, but nice try." I wink.

"Sarasota, Charleston, Ohio, those Southern-ish cities all mingle together in my head." She rolls her eyes. "Once you've stayed a while here in Detroit, it's like there's no place else."

Everyone's quiet, even me, as she leads us up, up, up a spiral staircase until nobody can even think about talking anymore, their breathing passages are so restricted. I'm side by side with the girl with thick eyebrows, and she's huffing and puffing up a lung.

"You good?" I wheeze out to her. Damn, I could go for a Xanax.

She smiles flippantly. "I'm great."

The top of the staircase is reached – finally – about five minutes later. Elle's practically sweating out Dior.

"What activity could possibly be so rewarding that we have to climb up these many stairs?" Devon asks.

Elle snickers. "Oh, ye of little faith." She leads us down a hallway, impossibly dark, until she reaches a door to her liking. "Who's first?"

"What's behind it?" The redheaded girl wrinkles her nose.

Elle smiles broadly. "Thanks for volunteering, Paigey," she cooes, flinging the door wide open. "We'll all take our time behind you, but until then, just give a holler when you're all the way through. You'll find your way in no time."

* * *

 _ **Paige Altham, 15, Minneapolis, Minnesota**_

* * *

Elle's arrogant smirk doesn't let up.

"You'll find your way in no time," she repeats, "but if you wanna be the first of us to get to the other side, you'll have to make the leap first."

Make the leap. The other side. Her words, sounding like foreign clues, ring dully in my ears.

"Well?" She stares at me, icy eyes wide. "Are you waiting for someone to accompany you?"

My cheeks burn, no doubt matching the same brilliant red as my hair. "No thanks," I say loudly. It's unfair of her to expect me to charge in there blindly, anyways. I'm not a timid person in the slightest, I'm actually pretty brave as they come, but it's a stupid move to step into a room carrying meat before you see the jackals. "Just gathering my stamina after that trek you just took us on." I turn, my stomach churning as I see nothing but darkness inside the door.

"Feisty!" I hear Elle cheer. That's all the motivation I need to take my first step inside the new, even darker corridor.

Hard ground. My black Converse tip-tap on the hard ground, and, confused, I almost turn back to ask Elle what it is that I'm supposed to do, but I'm greeted with the door slamming in my face. I've just been shut out by a Tommy Hilfiger-clad dwarf that's probably two months younger than me. Fantastic.

There's no turning back now.

I sigh, remembering her words about wishing for someone to accompany me. A companion would be nice, I think yearningly as I glance from side to side in the inky blackness. Someone to hold hands with while I step my way through this. But no – I've been the backbone to everything in my life, from my friendships to my family to my own sanity. I can handle a little blindness. I'm not scared of the dark.

As I walk through, listening to my own footsteps on the floor, I'm uncomfortably met with the feeling as if I'm about to bump into something – like back at home, whenever a storm killed our electricity and I stayed up too late reading downstairs and didn't have my phone or a flashlight. The dark stroll back upstairs to my room had my senses in overdrive, just as they're doing now.

I don't like this.

"Hey," I whisper to myself. Maybe if I can make a few noises, I can see how big the room is based on if there's a good echo or not. "Hey. Hey! _Hey!_ "

Silence. Not a single echo.

I grit my teeth, continuing forward. My feet travel shakily along the floor, patter after patter after patter after -

Falling. Falling. That's all I can register.

No matter how composed I was a couple minutes ago, that's all gone and dead now. I shriek, flailing my arms and squinting my eyes even in this absolute blackness, black even in this hole. All that feels human is screeching, screeching, screeching. _Oh my God, they're making us commit suicide by falling off ledges. I'm gonna be a pile of brains and mush on the pavement somewhere soon. Oh God. Oh God._

I hear something, far below, like a giant ceiling fan. The sound grows closer and closer, even louder than my scream, and I'm convinced that I'm about to fall to my death _so soon_ when all of a sudden –

Flying.

An intense wind shoves me upwards. I gasp for breath and my eyelids fly open – good thing, too, because all of a sudden, all the lights are on and everything's white for a solid, terrible moment and then I can see it all. Windows around me. I'm in a tube surrounded by windows, and above me, a hole that's not so far away, maybe fifteen floors. I wasn't falling for very long at all. A giant vent-like thing below me – all of a sudden, it registers to me that it's what people use to look like they're skydiving indoors. It's blowing my hair up, no doubt knotting it to no end, but it's blowing my clothes everywhere and making my skin feel so deliciously cold, and my heart's still beating like a drum, and all of a sudden, I laugh. I laugh because it's all so ridiculous and I was _really_ scared for this?

The wind below me grows weaker and weaker. It registers to me that I'm about to be dropped to the ground, but I can't twist my body vertically fast enough, and I fall to the ground on my hands and knees. And it hurts, and yet I keep laughing – laughing at this fantastic trick.

There's a simple white door leading out of the tunnel. I grasp the handle and follow it to an elevator, pressing the only button inside it and waiting to see where it takes me.

It slides up, up, up, dings, opens, and I'm greeted with twelve very curious pairs of eyes.

"So?" Elle smirks. "How'd it go? We all heard your warcry."

I'm too gleeful to even say "fuck you" to Elle like I do whenever I encounter offensive people. Instead, I walk out of the elevator casually, my legs feeling like gelatin, and I can't hold back a grin.

"Oh, hell. Worst experience of my life."

* * *

 _ **Mitchell Davies, 14, Arvada, Wyoming**_

* * *

The elevator dings, and I beam messily, looking out into the twelve pairs of eyes that watch my reaction, the last one to accomplish the test of guts.

You can hear everyone's reaction – Natalie's long string of cuss words, Laurel's excited whoops, Raine's weird Southern-y scream – and I was excited to go, as one can imagine by the breathless grins on everyone's faces when they emerged from the elevator. But I waited, the last one to go, because everyone else was more high-strung and squirmy than I. Elle didn't even have to tell me to go. She just gave me a look and I bounded down that hallway, anxious to see what awaited.

Arvada doesn't have thrills like this. The biggest event of the year is the corn roast a few towns over. The _corn_ roast. Where they put corn on a grill, salt it, and celebrate it. Clearly, it's a real Lollapalooza.

Elle waits until we've walked back down the long spiral staircase into the brightly-lit lobby before introducing something new. "Getting to know you games are lame as hell…" She smiles, her puffy lips shimmering in the fluorescent lighting. I hear thunder in the distance, outside the exiting doors of the lobby. "but I-"

The lights flicker.

Nobody else bats an eyelash except for Elle. She whips her head upwards, craning it to see if there's a light that went out or something. Her face is shocked. Frightened.

"It's probably just a power surge." I smile reassuringly. "Nothing you should worry about, I'm sure."

She looks back down at me, lips parted and eyes wide. That's the last thing I see before the lights go out completely.

There's groans from everyone – after spending a good hour or so in a completely black hallway, the bright lights were a welcome change. I'm not a complaining person, but even I sigh a little, disappointed. "What now?" someone – I think Ailsa – whines.

"I… I don't know." Elle's voice is oddly high. "I've never had the lights go out like this."

"Oh, because you're a rich bitch." Another person – undeniably Payton – laughs. "You're not used to this kind of stuff! It's okay, the power will turn on in a little bit, maybe a few hours if the storm's terrible."

"I'm not a rich bitch!"

"Shut up, Payton," another boy says, before the thunder rumbles even louder, sending a chill through my bones. There's a pure moment of silence, and then the faint pattering of rain from a very distant rooftop, coming down hard and piercing. I can make out the front doors, a thin light shining from the frosted glass.

The lights flicker once more, and the one figure I see in that split second is Elle, arms crossed, biting her thumbnail, looking utterly perplexed. "I don't understand," she mutters. "This has never happened before. We've always had generators…"

I don't add anything to the chatter that soon breaks out, voices talking over one another, laughs, panicked or frenzied questions mingling together like spaghetti noodles. I stride over to the doors of the lobby, suddenly yearning for a breath of fresh, rainy air. My hand reaches out to the frosted glass. It's cold.

The moment I push on the door, an alarm breaks out, loud and threatening. It not only surprises me but pierces my eardrums, and no doubt everyone else's in the general vicinity – I clap my hands over my ears and stagger backwards a bit, glaring at those front doors. What the hell?

Elle rushes to my side – I can tell it's her because of the sickly sweet perfume. "For safety," she says. "If you wanted to leave, you could've just asked. We could've escorted you out a side entrance."

I frown, knowing she can't see my expression in this dim of lights. The alarm dies down with one final wail. "Why weren't we warned about this?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

Elle's gone in a minute or so, just another voice adding to the chaos back with my group. I exhale, hand drawing to the door once more. Ice cold. I hear the rain splashing outside. Fondly, I recall the nights I spent on our front porch with a giant sweatshirt, listening to the rain and falling asleep on the hammock because I was too lazy to go inside and climb into my own bed. I've always loved rain. It washed away everything bad.

Rain was my favorite weather, probably. How it drizzled so elegantly and cancelled everything. Another memory sprung to my mind – one of the worst storms we've had all summer, last summer. My parents had a bunch of their friends over for supper, but once the lightning started illuminating our little town so much that it looked as if the sun was flickering on and off, they started making up beds in the guest room and living room for them to stay overnight.

I remember the dinner we had – fettuccine alfredo with garlic bread and salad. Mrs. Tanner had been arguing about her political views, and Mrs. Conway was arguing that they were wrong, and I was right in the middle. They asked me what I thought. After carefully considering both sides over a particularly buttery piece of bread, I had murmured that neither side had too much potential for me. They thought I was being clever. I really just didn't care.

And so as it is, history repeats itself – I didn't care about the conversations that were occurring fifteen yards from me. I could hear my roommate Payton's high-pitched voice, calling out to Ailsa, and I knew that he'd try to drag me into one of his silly debates about coffee or photo-editing filters if I went over there. It's not that I have a dislike for people – I think people are pretty pleasant, really. I just prefer not to get into conversations where I have to contribute a big opinion, because honestly, I think an open mind is always best.

If only I could just slink off to my room right now, take out one of the postcards I picked up, and start writing to my parents or Courtney about all of this. Maybe I'd pick one of the ones that I bought here in Detroit, like the silvery one I like so much. I shut my eyes, feeling tears prick. I really do miss them.

But I'll be back soon, though, and I'll be able to hug them and fall asleep on my hammock soon enough. No matter how radical of an experience this is, there really is no place like home.

* * *

 **A/N: Stranger by 070 Shake.**

* * *

 **Feel like this wasn't my best chapter, moreso setting things up for future chapters. This is where things start happening, you know. Not too much dialogue to be had when our core 12 starts coming together.**

 **I'm happy that I've been able to crank out chapters so quickly, though, but I hope they're good enough! I'm just falling more and more in love with this story as I was in the beginning. It's great.**

 **As always, a review would be appreciated in support of your character or if you're only dropping by to read!**


	9. Porcelain

.

* * *

 _ **It takes a lot**_ _ **to trust that someone else will catch my fall.**_

* * *

 _ **Laurel Amory, 14, Boston, Massachusetts**_

* * *

Hours have passed and we've been in this damn lobby.

I'm not talking about maybe one, two fun-filled hours, I'm talking about a solid six hours of nothing but sitting in this lobby and babbling on about absolutely nothing. I'm pretty sure two or three people have slunk off, as I haven't heard from Arian or Mitchell in forever. Everyone's making the best of the incredibly dark situation, but the lack of power's starting to get to me. It's getting cold, and this thin tank top isn't doing me any favors.

"What should we do?" I whisper to Chase, by my side. I can feel her soft hair against my shoulder. "It's obvious that Elle's not going to let us go anytime soon. She's still telling us about her trip to Venice."

"She's been talking about her vacations for so long…" Chase scoffs. "So much for all the 'activities' that they were talking about today."

"I'm sure that there probably were activities, they just got put off because of this." I sigh. "I would've thought that in a big city like this, they'd have some generators on by now. Storms aren't that major."

"You're right." Chase grumbles to herself. "I feel disgusting."

Frowning, I rub a tendril of my hair between two fingers. "As do I. I could really go for a shower right now."

"Let's sneak off, then. They can't blame us for leaving if we have been sitting on this floor for literally hours on end. This ain't what we signed up for."

"I'm down. Which way were the stairs?"

Painstakingly slow, grateful for Elle's loud, babbling voice, Chase and I crawl – though nobody would've known if we had stood and ran, I guess – in the general direction of the corridor containing the stairs. Lucky for us, the red neon 'exit' signs must've been battery-powered – I could see one clear as day.

"This is bullshit." I hiss as we climb the stairs.

"Obviously."

"Also, when she said activities, I didn't think she meant falling to our almost-deaths. What was that shit, anyway? Some kind of Divergent or Spy Kids allusion? What was the point?"

"They were trying to see how we'd react to a new environment." Chase snorts. "I took a psychology class. It was some stimuli experiment done a while back, I'm pretty sure."

We reach our floor, and feel our way to our room. I feel around for my room key in my pocket. "Damn, I left our key in the room. Can you unlock it?"

Even in the dark, I can tell Chase's expression must be pissed. "You idiot. I don't have pockets, I told you to take one when we left this morning."

My face flushes red. "Bitch! I didn't hear you! I was too tired from being hustled from room to room last night while you were looking for someone new and fun to play games with. I got two hours of sleep while you were _fucking_ Arian, but you think I could fall asleep after that?"

"It's what girl friends do with each other!" Chase argues back. "If you were out there with a dick appointment and I was your bodyguard, I wouldn't bitch about it the next day!"

I glare at her inky figure. If there's anything I hate, it's fake people, and at the moment, Chase is fitting the bill quite nicely. "So I was supposed to be the bodyguard while you upped your body count?" I hiss. "The cool thing is that I was told we'd actually be having fun, not playing Secret Service. Shitty job I did, then, falling asleep in Antonio's bed!"

Chase sighs. "Let's not argue, Laurel. We've been through enough today."

"We went through a skydiving tunnel and sat on a lobby floor for six hours, we haven't been through jack shit." I rub my temples, thinking. "There were community showers on our floor at the end of the dorm rooms, I remember Kendall mentioning something about that at some point. Maybe we can just bum off of the stalls in there. I'm sure there's shampoo."

We feel our way to the end of the hall in silence, reaching a door half-open. I feel for a plaque and feel nothing but Braille. _Damn, now would be a good time to be blind._

"I'm just gonna assume that these are showers." I march in, Chase following like a meek blonde puppy.

The smell of soap and floral shampoo fills my senses. "We made it," Chase mutters.

"I'm just gonna strip right now, find a stall, and hope there's shampoo." I swing my tank top over my head, silently praying that I don't mix up my own underwear and Chase's.

It takes a while, but I feel out a line of stalls, and swing the door shut behind me. It also takes a long while to figure out how to work the faucet so it reaches a temperature that doesn't either boil me alive or send me to an Arctic tundra, but once I do, it's bliss. I lather myself up with a bar of soap found on a little ledge, relishing in the fact that water tanks aren't based off of electricity.

The water runs down my body in rivets. Nostalgically I remember the showers I'd take after soccer practice, stripped down to my sports bra and underwear with my teammates. We were messes of sweat and mud and cheap body spray, but we were genuinely happy.

I close my eyes, splashing water over my face. Chase is a great friend, one of the best I've had, but she doesn't fit the criteria of an entire team as your best friend.

In a team, it's not 'only the strong survive'. It's everyone pulls their weight and everyone else's so nobody gets left behind. If we had a power outage at my school and I was stuck in a room with my team, we wouldn't be sitting on the floor playing patty cake, we'd be doing something constructive and interesting to pass the time. Sure, we'd be bumping into walls and getting bloody noses, but we'd all be getting bloody noses. It'd be together.

Oh, I can't wait to see them again.

* * *

 _ **Raine Harvey, 14, Galveston, Texas**_

* * *

"Why can't we go back up to our rooms?"

Almost half of our group has gone, slipped off into the inky blackness to explore the hotel or back up the long trek to their rooms. Only the obedient have lingered, waiting for Elle to quit pacing and tell us what to do. She remembered her flashlight a couple minutes ago, but it's a tiny penlight on a keychain. Nevertheless, it's better than nothing, allowing us a thin beam of LED light.

"You're not allowed," she barks. "We were supposed to do activities until dinnertime. But I'm not getting a good connection over my walky…" She taps the little device in her hand, shaking it when there's no reaction.

"I'm sure it'll come on in no time." I smile, touching her arm. "We could play a talking game until they tell you what to do. That way, you're doing your job by keeping us entertained, and we're not so bored over here."

Elle huffs. "Like telephone?"

"Like getting to know you games!" I chirp, motioning for everyone to sit before I remember they can hardly make out what's illuminated in the penlight. "Everyone, sit down. Let's try to make it a circle." Shuffling. Someone gets poked and they go 'ow'. Soon enough, we're mashed together in a circle, knee to knee.

"What are we going to play?" The voice is Ailsa, I'm pretty sure.

"We could play never have I ever," another voice says – Payton.

"Isn't that a dirty game?" Etienne.

"Not necessarily." Payton's voice takes on a mischievous tone. "Unless we want it to be. Everyone, start with ten fingers, put one down whenever you _have_ done the action. First one to zero wins!"

"I'll go first!" Paige, I think. She's right beside me. "Never have I ever been out of my state, except to here."

She's never been out of her own state? That interests me. After my father died, we've been dirt poor, and still been able to make the trip up every Christmas to Louisiana to visit my relatives. Maybe she's never had a reason. I put my pinky down delicately.

"My turn?" My voice breaks out. "Never have I ever gotten worse than a B."

"You're making this too easy," Payton calls out.

"That's not a good thing, dumbass." Natalie, I believe. "It just says you're not smart."

"One step closer away to winning, though!"

"I'll go, now," says Etienne. I can feel the bandaid on his knee, pressed up against mine. He took a nasty spill this morning, and I'm pretty sure he chipped a tooth against the floor. He didn't seem to mind too much, just cried for a solid twenty minutes before biting into some toast. "Never have I ever had a birthday party."

My heart falls momentarily. In my own mind dances images of my mother and father and all my siblings, gathered around a hefty sheet cake from the grocery, adorned with orange and red flowers and golden candles. Their smiles warmed my heart almost as much as the warm cake did. I haven't had a birthday party with them since my father and Mike passed away – I hadn't much of a taste for cake after that.

And yet Mother still made the effort to get me a new book and a new pair of shoes, every birthday. This year it was penny loafers. I wore them almost every day.

I didn't bring them with me. They're lying with my other few pairs of shoes, in a neat row next to my bed.

I wonder if they're still as polished as they were when I left them.

The game continues for several more minutes, and I'm actually quite enjoying myself. I'm down to six fingers and am about to take my turn once more when the lights flicker. Elle shrieks.

Leaping to my feet, I instantly forget about the game. "What is it?" I shout, seeing flashes of the people around me in the glinting lights. The floor jumps suddenly, and I topple back to the ground, right into Etienne. He gives a comically high-pitched yelp, but I have no time to laugh.

"We have to get down to the storm cellars," hollers Elle, clutching onto a chair. From what I can see, her eyeliner's smeared, presumably from crying. But she doesn't look scared like her voice makes it seem. Her eyes meet mine and they dart away. She looks guilty.

All that I think of Elle is forgotten in the panic that ensues. Etienne grabs my hand, apparently to pull himself up, but forgets that he's got a good thirty pounds on me and instead reels me on top of him. This time it's my turn to yelp.

Devon and Natalie dash past me, hand in hand. Ailsa's tumbling after them, close behind, and for one split second, her eyes meet mine and she thrusts our her hand. I take it gratefully, pulling myself to the floor, looking back for Etienne but being pulled away in the rush. He's down on the ground, limbs in a tangle like a big albino spider.

"Etienne!" I croak out. Ailsa bites her lip, her running slowing for a solid moment. It picks up.

"He can get up himself," she snaps, her face a mish-mash of black and tan in the pulsating lights. "He's not a cripple, he's just clumsy."

 _Maybe he's clumsy_ , I think to myself, _but he's my roommate, and I should be back there helping him get out with the rest of us. I know he'd be doing the same for me._ The floor gives another quake, and the three girls and I soon wind up on the floor. My mouth is biting down on Natalie's shoe, and she swats me.

"Where the fuck did Elle go?" Natalie howls.

"She was up ahead!" Devon scrambles to her feet, glancing back at the ones behind us. Paige and Payton aren't far behind. Antonio was the first one out of here, running with inhuman speed. But Etienne…

"I know where she went," Paige announces. "I watched what door she went into. Follow me!"

So there goes Payton, Natalie, Devon, and Ailsa, all staggering after Paige in the blinding optical illusion. For a terrible split second, I'm torn, mind telling me to follow the pack, heart telling me to go back into the giant lobby, weaving between chairs and tables, losing my sense of direction and throwing myself out into the dangerous unknown, to help Etienne to his feet, where he still hasn't emerged.

My heart and my mind tousle.

I take off, doing exactly what my father would do. I know I'll make him proud yet.

* * *

 _ **Natalie Decker, 16, Milwaukee, Wisconsin**_

* * *

It really seems like Paige is the new Elle.

"This door," she announces, pushing open the most random door in the corridor. It's a closet. I press my lips together, not hiding the glare that comes when I look at her.

"Don't look at me like that!" Paige snaps. She might be my roommate, but the passive-aggressive hostility between us is so thick, you'd need a steak knife to cut through it. Where Paige thinks her view of the world is all for justice, as in she treats everyone the way they treat her, mine is more of a go-with-the-flow and do whatever I want to do. She thinks I'm cynical and bitter. She's not wrong, but fuck her for not making more of an attempt to be nice. At least I tried being polite. "So I got one door wrong. It was one of them on this side, I saw her."

"It looks like our new leader isn't living up to her promises," I reply right back. I hold my head high. "We haven't had much luck, either. The first one ditches us to save her own ass and our new one's a fraud."

Another lurch rocks the floor and sends us all spiraling down the hallway. I hit ground face first, my jaw smacking into the hard flooring. I bite down on my tongue hard. Groaning with shock, I turn my head, tasting blood.

"Natalie!" Ailsa cries out. She rushes to my side, pulling me to my feet. I almost growl at her friendliness, but shove the negative feelings back down. She helped me. She got off her ass and helped me to my feet, not the others. I should be grateful. I _am_ grateful.

"Come on," I hiss, scowling at Paige on the ground. I think her nose is bleeding, but that might just be a tendril of hair. "Let's blow this joint and find the storm cellar."

"The elevator would probably have a button for the basement," Ailsa says.

"You crazy bitch!" Ailsa looks at me wildly, and I give a grin to show her I'm kidding. "The elevator is the last place we wanna be right now with all this malfunctioning electricity and whatever the whole jumping floor situation is."

"You're probably right," she mutters. "What's your plan then?"

I grab her hand and rush out of the darkened hallway, risking the high ceilings of the lobby. A pot and a plant from a shelf stories above us has crashed onto the ground, sending smithereens of ceramic clay and peat moss everywhere. I lead us into a new corridor, one with much fewer doors, and I push open the one for a staircase.

Ailsa stares as I enter. I glance back. "What're you waiting for?"

"How do you know this will lead to the storm cellar?"

It takes all I have not to roll my eyes. "Typically, staircases lead to a basement," I say patiently.

"How did you know there was a staircase here?" Her eyes are wide, white.

"I had a lot of exploring time on my hands." I smirk, waving my hand to tell her to follow. She hesitates, but I don't. I fly down stair after stair after stair, clutching the railing with a hand as I go down, down, down. I hear Ailsa's light footsteps pattering after me.

"I have a bad feeling about this," she mewls.

"Elle herself said to get to the damn storm cellar!" I call over my shoulder. "She's probably down there right now, laughing her ass off and counting how many diamonds are on her wrist Swarovski."

I must be a pretty good motivator, for Ailsa picks up the pace and is soon right by my side, breathing heavily as she descends with me.

The staircase reaches its end, and there's a singular door in front of us. I waste no time in pushing it open, greeted with the darkest, creepiest hallway I could imagine. Red lights from an EXIT sign bounce off of the floor, slick with moisture.

"This is creepy as fuck," Ailsa whines by my side.

I look ahead grimly, mouth set in determination. Back home, I might've not cared too much about my future except where my next baggie of weed was coming from or what new video games were being released in the next month, but that was then. When it comes to self-preservation, I'm undeniably good at saving my own ass.

For a moment, I almost miss my own home. Its safety. The routine. Smoking weed with Matteo, coming home and ignoring my mom, hacking here and there to up my grades just a bit. I had a little control over my life.

But here? No barriers. My parents aren't here to scorn me and call me vixen and try and send me off to rehab. Nobody knows me but me. I can rule my life here in Detroit. This is me, plain and simple, starting my adult life early. _Special opportunities_ , they promised. Special opportunities, I'll receive.

"We have to do this," I say, hearing a remarkably strong voice coming from my mouth. "It's the one way we know will be safe."

I look to my side. Ailsa's brown eyes are wide, but no longer wide with fright. Wide with something warmer and kinder. She might be one year my junior, but as we lock eyes, she could be a thousand years younger, a doe with her ears perked up and eyelashes batting. "I trust you," she says.

I look back out into the hallway. "Thank you," I say, and I walk forward.

* * *

 **A/N: Porcelain by Skott.**

* * *

 **Andddd we got one more chapter until the arena!**

 **I hope you're enjoying this story so far. School's picked up and I have actual homework now and it sucks, but writing for this is a little piece of solace that I enjoy. I hope you're enjoying it, too! I've appreciated every single person who's come back to this story and reviewed. It makes me happy knowing that even though I abandoned it for a while, you guys didn't. Much love!**

 **As per usual, I'd always appreciate a review ;)**


	10. Revenge

.

* * *

 _ **Oh man, what a world, the things I hear**_

 _ **If I could act on my revenge, then, oh, would I?**_

* * *

 _ **Payton West, 15, Detroit, Michigan**_

* * *

It feels like the world is ending.

I fumble with my iPhone, struggling to slide it from my pocket. The people I'm with, Paige and Devon, they must think I'm crazy. But I'm not. I'm thinking strategically. If only I can get this footage, add a few sound effects and a couple of crops, and then manage to post it, I could be Youtube-famous in a matter of hours.

The quakes come, go, and Paige keeps pushing open doors, a thin sheen of sweat breaking out on her forehead. "I know it was one of these!" Her voice is high-pitched and desperate now. She's desperate to make us think that she's smart. While I don't mind, it's kind of embarrassing me for her.

I focus the back camera on my face, touching a bump on my chin that just might be acne. Gross.

"Here I am, in the middle of some earthquake or serious electricity malfunction or something…" I rake my fingers through my curls, suddenly wishing I had put in more gel this morning. "Will we make it out? Kinda uncertain. I must say though, even though I'm scared as _hell_ , I'm also super excited to see where this takes us."

Devon shoots me a look. "The fuck are you doing?"

"I'm vlogging," I say warmly. "Care to let the world know who you are?"

She grabs my wrist, twisting the camera to face her. She doesn't even seem to care that it's upside down.. Her long nails dig into my skin. "Hi, world. I'm Devon and Payton here is quite possibly the world's biggest idiot for bringing out a slab of glass when we're falling to the ground every four seconds."

"Hey, now!" I pull the camera back, slightly offended. "I have a protective case."

"This is the door!" Paige shrieks with excitement, finally pulling open a door as nondescript as all the rest. "I told you guys that I knew where Elle went."

Devon and I share a look, but say nothing as we follow Paige down the staircase, down and down and down until boom, there's another quake, this one louder than all the rest. I clutch my phone tight, clenching my eyes tighter than ever as I crash into Paige, who collides with Devon. Collectively, we all give a scream and slide down the staircase like a sack of rocks.

It's Devon who slows to a stop first. "Motherfuck!" She swipes at her nose, revealing a river of crimson flowing from a nostril. She swears again, pressing her wrist to her nose to attempt and staunch the flow. "Either of you got a Kleenex?"

I frown down at my tissue-less pockets. "Sorry."

"Whatever." She shakes her head, sending blood droplets splattering everywhere. "We have to make it to the storm cellar."

There's a sudden rush from above, and we're greeted with three pairs of extremely wide eyes; Chase, Laurel, and Antonio. "Hello there," I call out cautiously. I remember my phone's still recording, and I hold it out tentatively, not fully registering what's going on until I see it on the screen. Chase and Laurel look as if they've been caught in a rainstorm, wrapped in towels. I think Laurel has shampoo in her hair. Antonio looks relatively normal, just shaken.

"What happened to you two?" Devon asks, not masking her mirth.

"The water shut out in the shower super early," Chase says back, teeth chattering, towel wrapped tightly around her chest. "There's no water in the building, like, at all."

"Water doesn't stop due to an electricity shortage." Paige's concerned voice turns our gazes over to her. "Water lines and electric wires are completely different things. The water tanks might run out, but the tanks for a building such as this would be huge. They wouldn't run out from two little showers."

"But the water does run out with electricity," argues Devon. "Unless you've got a well and a pump."

"Then tell me why the water kept on running even after the power went black!" Chase calls out over everyone.

"Everyone shut the _fuck_ up!" Antonio groans. "What does this matter? Maybe this building's connected to a well somewhere, maybe there's some magical water generator that just stopped working, there's absolutely no use in arguing over why it stopped when. The important thing here is to get to the damn storm cellar, so why are we waiting around here on a staircase for the building to shake again?"

"That, too!" Paige says as we continue downwards, sobered up by Antonio's speech. "Buildings shouldn't shake like this. When was the last time that Michigan's experienced an earthquake?"

"Hardly ever?" I say hopefully.

She points back at me, still trekking. "When do we ever hear of earthquakes in major US cities like Detroit?"

"Sometimes," Laurel pipes up from the back. "One of my soccer coaches a few years back was from Kalamazoo County, and they had an earthquake a while back."

"That's besides the point," Paige huffs, her point past its age of maturity.

The staircase ends within seconds of her last vocalization and we all stand, nothing holding us back but a large door and a tiny square of cement. A telltale rumble growls in the distance. My calves suddenly feel unexplainably weak, and I shudder just a little, the cold fingers of fear scrabbling at my heart. I've never felt fear like this, not real fear. Maybe I've been scared when my mom yelled at me, or when I knew I was about to take a test that I didn't study for, but I've never genuinely been terrified like this. My life has been pretty sheltered thus far; I suppose I should be grateful.

"Someone open it," urges Chase.

Nobody makes a move, so I take the lead, holding my phone tight to my chest and wrenching open the knob.

It's times like this that I wish my life wasn't so sheltered.

* * *

 _ **Devon Carmichael, 16, Ness City, Kansas**_

* * *

Payton whips open the door, and there's Elle.

She's not alone. There's Natalie and Ailsa, huddled under thick blankets. Their faces are illuminated in green light, their eyes wide. Payton rushes into the small room, and reluctantly, the rest of us follow. I bring up the rear, slamming the door in our wake.

"This makes only eight," Elle says. Her lips are puckered into a frown, but for someone who's lost almost of her group, she looks relatively unbothered. "Where's the other four of you?"

"Sorry that we didn't run out and throw a search party for our lost friends," I deadpan. Arian, Raine, Etienne, and Mitchell are probably just stupid, reckless boys who didn't care enough to stick with the group. They almost deserve to be lost in the hotel as the floors shake and rumble.

I glance around, but there's not much to see. Two walls full of screens on a night-vision mode, broadcasting green snow out to the room. A couple crates containing cans and bottles of drink, with some heavy blankets stockpiled on top. Some boxes that say _Walky-Talky_ on the side. If this is the storm cellar that Elle was talking about, it's a sorry excuse for one.

"You don't have to be so rude," Elle pouts. She folds her arms, eyes drifting off to the camera screens. A frown deepens on her face, and someone's stomach rumbles. "Who was that?" A pause. Her face looks sickly in the green light. "Are you hungry?"

Payton winces. "Just a little. We haven't really eaten since breakfast."

Elle huffs, like it's such a big burden. "You can try to crack open some of the cans. They're pretty good rations, actually, there's peaches and things."

I watch as Payton cautiously removes a single can from a crate and holds it up to the screen, examining it. "Hey, I got applesauce!" He cracks the lid open and takes a loud slurp, smacking his lips. "This is actually pretty good."

"Hand it over, I'm hungry, too." Natalie grabs it from him and takes a swig.

I watch in mild disgust as the can gets passed around the group, everyone slurping and gulping and humming in enjoyment. "Isn't that nasty?" I ask. "These cans have probably been down here for years."

Natalie, who the can's been passed back to, examines the label. "Nah. It's got a good nine months till the expiration date."

Out of nowhere, the soundless screens give a screech of static. Everyone's stare whips to one of the screens, seeing wide-eyed Mitchell creeping through a dark corridor. He looks like he's been sobbing, and he doesn't look as if he tried to hide it.

"Where is that corridor?" Laurel yawns. She sounds absolutely exhausted, though she looked perfectly normal moments ago.

"Seventh floor," Elle hisses. "I'm reeling his ass in. Anyone wanna come with me?"

I huddle deeper into my blanket, expecting Paige or one of the valiant narcissists to play the hero and accompany her, but nobody makes a move. Everyone stares at the ground in a dazed sort of way. I furrow my brows, eyes flickering from face to face. What's happening to everyone?

"Fine, stay here then." Elle purses her lips, surveying the room. "God. You all look like your dogs just died. Perk up a little, it's just a storm."

And with that, she's gone, slamming the door behind her. I swear I hear a lock turn.

I leap to my feet, a mixture of fear and anger burning in my chest. "What's wrong with all of you?" I kick Payton's foot, but he doesn't even snap at me not to touch his Adidas. "You guys look like zombies. The hell happened?"

"I'm so tired…" Natalie's eyelids flutter. Next to her, Ailsa's zonked. Her head lolls onto her shoulder, resting on Antonio's shoulder. Antonio himself looks like he's struggling to stay awake. His eyes meet mine.

"I know what this feels like," he croaks. "I think we were drugged. It's probably just fast-acting sleeping pills… but I don't know why we'd be drugged."

My eyes widen as I remember the almost-empty applesauce can, nestled in Natalie's hands. I whip it from her loose grip, cautiously bringing it to my nose. No smell other than the sickly-sweet apple scent. And yet… everyone's almost dead to the world. One by one, I watch helplessly as they each fall asleep. Antonio is the last one.

"What's happening… to us?" He blinks his eyes, head wavering on his neck. He looks like a floppy marionette.

"You definitely were drugged… I don't know what to do…!" I swallow hard, fear locking into my veins. It feels as if I'm rooted to the floor. Antonio looks pained, eyes never releasing their gaze from mine until he can't fight it anymore, and his eyelids slip shut.

The realization that I'm the only conscious one in this room comes over my mind. Panic suddenly consumes me, and I race to the door, heart beating rapidly. I can feel it in my hands as I jiggle and tug and push on the doorknob, to no avail. The lock click I heard was for certain. Elle locked us in here.

Frustrated, I kick a crate and send cans flying in every which way. I slump to the ground, head in my hands. "Where the fuck did I go wrong?" I whisper to myself.

My mother. It definitely started with my mother. If that bitch hadn't gone out whoring every night and started enlisting my sister, then I wouldn't have felt unsafe in my own home and run away searching for a new one… I wouldn't have left the only town that I've known my whole life. I could have stayed and retained the normalcy that sixteen-year-old girls are supposed to have. I could have joined volleyball and student government. I could be studying for a biology test right now, instead of being trapped in a sketchy basement in Michigan with seven random kids from God-knows-where across the country, kids that I've known for hardly a day, kids _that are fucking unconscious_ and unaware of the drugged applesauce soaking into their bloodstreams. Maybe it did start with my mom. Maybe our family has a penchant for getting ourselves into fucked-up situations. Does being a prostitute even compare to being locked in a room where everyone's basically dead to the world? I doubt it.

I hear a key in the door and panic. Heart beating even wilder than before, I throw a blanket over myself and loll my head back, eyelids shut. I wonder if the person entering the room can see my heartbeat through my vulnerable, exposed throat.

"They all down?" A voice.

"I know they all had some applesauce. I watched them." Elle. _That's fucking Elle_. It'd be so easy right now to pop my eyes open, wave my arms around, and shout, ' _Hey! You forgot me, you forgetful, stupid, traitorous bitch!_ ' But I could never. I'm paralyzed. I'm so scared.

"Let's take them to floor six, then." Another voice. My heart sinks as I hear the foosteps. Not just three pairs, but many pairs. So many pairs. I hear shoes shuffling. I feel the person next to me being picked up – I think it was Paige.

And then I'm swept up, completely airborne in the hands of a stranger wearing heavy shoes, and it takes all the willpower I have not to shriek as I'm carried away.

* * *

 _ **Etienne Devere, 16, Columbia, Missouri**_

* * *

My eyelids flutter open.

The first thing I recognize is chains around my wrists and ankles. I take a gulp of air, struggling, hearing the metal clank against itself.

"Don't," a voice says from next to me. Wide-eyed, I see Antonio. He looks a thousand years older, all of a sudden.

"Why not?"

"You'll exhaust yourself."

His words soak in. I snap my head around the room, trying to take everything in. I see Raine, Devon, Natalie, Mitchell, Chase… I see everyone! Everyone from our group. I almost smile before I realize that everyone is in chains – everyone. Even tiny Paige, her small face turned to the floor. The chains seem especially bulky and huge on her thin wrists.

The room that we're in is odd – it's wall-to-wall in windows. Considering how small the room is, though, it's undoubtedly the same screen-things that we've got in our rooms. There's no building this high up that has a room this small, completely surrounded by windows like this.

Footsteps click-clack, and fear pumps itself in my veins. In comes four figures – I'm pretty sure they're a few of the group leaders that we were introduced to this morning. Kenny, Sierra, Colton, and yes, there's Elle, her tanned head hung in shame.

The blond one, Colton, is the first one to make his way to our circle. He hovers between Arian and Ailsa. "Hi," he starts.

"What the fuck is going on?" Natalie spits out immediately. His eyes widen, and he staggers back a couple steps, as if to avoid any more air bound saliva.

"You'll find out in a moment," Colton speaks slowly. His dark eyes are unreadable, but by the way his frown doesn't flicker, I can tell he's the bearer of bad news. I scan the circle once more – did someone die or something? "I just would like you to know, that this is not the doing of Kenny, Elle, Sierra, or I. We're merely pawns in the bigger picture – and you all are, too."

Everyone seems too shell-shocked to say anything, so I try. My voice is thin and unsteady, like a stream of water coming from a faucet that hasn't been used in years. "What big picture?"

Colton locks eyes with me before breaking our connection instantly. "I… I'd rather just read this with no questions. I understand you're all feeling… weird…"

"I feel scared as fuck," Antonio mutters under his breath. His wrists sag under their chains.

"Escapees," Colton says, reading from his phone. His eyes flicker up one last time, guiltily, then back to his screen. "In a real-life modification of the _Hunger Games_ , the entire hotel resort has offered itself up as an arena for the fifth annual _Runaway Games_. The rules are simple, as per _Hunger Games_ rules: eliminate everyone else on your path to victory, utilizing whatever tools you can on your rise to victory. Only one victor is acceptable, as was the rules of the original Games. May the odds be ever-"

"This is a fucking joke!" Natalie strains against her chains, metal clanking against each other. Her face is beet red with anger. "You're fucking joking!"

Cries of anger and confusion erupt across the room, but I'm too petrified to say anything. I feel as if my blood has frozen in my veins, rooting me to my chair in the position I'm forced into. This does seem like a joke. Using such soft language for such horrible themes. Using that mocking motto. My eyes search despairingly at the three free kids standing in the corner – none of them look older than me. I lock eyes with Elle. Hers are watery.

Colton waits until the cries die down, though it takes quite a few minutes. He looks personally victimized from everyone's anger. "You don't believe me," is all he says.

Arian, next to him, gives a taunting smirk. "Yeah, Bleach-Blond, we really fucking don't."

That's when Colton snaps. "You think it's fucking easy for me?" he shouts at Arian. "Having a body count of _three_. Thinking about the kids I murdered every fucking night when I fall asleep. Waking up with the knowledge that I'm an unconvicted serial killer. Having to show up for this every year and be the personal spokesperson to tell each new group of kids that hey, sorry you ran away and shit, but now you get to stab people and get those 'special opportunities' if you manage not to get your throat sliced!"

Everyone is shocked into silence, including me, but Colton doesn't let up. "Yeah, Arian, it's real fucking easy going to therapy every fucking day but that doesn't help, either, because the therapist is in on it and she knows what organization she's a part of but she doesn't help either, you know why? Because they've killed her brother already and they've got an arsonist ready to set her parents' house in flames if she dares leave Detroit. And she's forced to watch kids kill kids every fucking year, too, just like the rest of us." Colton's entire body shudders like he's been struck with an electric rod. "God, not even Kenny's innocent. Kenny. You all still don't believe me, do you?" Colton shouts, not looking for an answer. "Here, go believe the fucking screen. Believe the screen."

With that, he turns away, body convulsing over and over and over. He looks like he's dry-heaving, just how I feel like doing. The shock has consumed my body too heavily for me to move.

Then the screen drops from the ceiling, just behind me. I twist my neck to see the picture on the screen.

It's the lobby. The very lobby I was in not an hour ago – or so I think. I see Elle, all of a sudden, her blond hair in two thick braids. Her and a black-haired companion.

The sound is off and I can only see the screen from one eye, but I can tell something's happening. They're arguing. The black-haired girl is empty-handed, waving her hands around. Elle, increasingly agitated, has something clutched in her hand.

And then it happens.

The stabbing.

I watch in disbelief as TV Elle tackles her friend, driving the knife deep into her side. Her chest. Her stomach. Her neck. Blood flows everywhere. The black-haired girl can't even struggle anymore. I watch as Elle grasps and grasps for the knife, but it's buried in the other girl's windpipe, slick with blood.

I hear sobbing from the other side of the room and I see Elle. She's buried herself in Kenny's sweatshirt. Her small body convulses over and over and over.

"Do you fucking believe me now?" Colton stares out at us, dead eyes resembling a blond skeleton. He looks appalled. "Once we leave this room, your chains spring off of you. You're free. Nobody's leaving this hotel until only one of you is standing. You don't fucking believe me."

"You're psychos," Chase spits.

"We're not the psychos." Sierra speaks up for the first time. She glares. "You'll see. We're not the ones to avoid."

Those are her last words. None of the four make eye contact as a window panel slides upwards, allowing them through to a room unseen. The window slides down, and the chains binding my ankles and wrists suddenly slide off.

We're not the ones to avoid. I watch the people around me standing up shakily, rubbing their wrists, and I can feel my own panic bubbling up in my stomach.

The ones to avoid are in this very room with me.

* * *

 **A/N: Revenge by XXXTentacion.**

* * *

 **Hope your October is going well so far. I'm hyped for the Games! Apologies for Etienne's POV being a bit longer than the rest, it had more descriptions and explanations than the others.**

 **Reviews are appreciated!**


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